← Back to context

Comment by jibal

9 hours ago

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." -- Edsger Dijkstra

even smart people say dumb things sometimes.

  • like "goto considered harmful" when all assembly language depends on it

    • In context though, it was trying to move standards forward.

      Look at how acceptable C has changed over the years.

      In ye old days it was acceptable to just read in any old text without checking bounds, now that is considered harmful.

      There are still use cases for hairier parts of C, but that doesn't mean they should be used all the time. Same with goto.