Comment by garenp
12 years ago
Yeah, of course I'm aware, it's just that there is a time/space trade-off, so I think folks who argue that goto should never be used or has no legitimate uses, are just taking too much of a hard-line.
And I think it just highlights a lack of understanding about what might make goto "bad" in programming--IMHO it's "bad" when it makes control flow more complex, which undermines maintainability. Common "cleanup" idioms that only jump forward are not that bad, because they don't make control flow particularly more difficult to follow. (Whereas jumping backwards, especially across many state changes, can be very hard to follow.)
"it's just that there is a time/space trade-off,"
I don't see a time-space tradeoff here. Compiled naively, I expect the version with flags to be slower and take more space. Compiled sufficiently smartly, I expect them to be equivalent. I expect real compilers to be close enough to the latter for most but not all purposes, but I think if the flag version was more readable and maintainable the place to focus (collectively, medium term) would be on making compilers smart enough. Obviously, in the short term on specific projects you do what you need to.
"I think folks who argue that goto should never be used or has no legitimate uses, are just taking too much of a hard-line."
I agree, but that's because there are places where use of Go To makes things more readable and maintainable, not - primarily - because they are actually needed, per se, even with performance constraints (in the overwhelming majority of cases).
'And I think it just highlights a lack of understanding about what might make goto "bad" in programming--IMHO it's "bad" when it makes control flow more complex, which undermines maintainability.'
I agree wholeheartedly.