[Numpy-discussion] Python needs goto

[Benjamin Root]

Most of the time when I wanted to use goto in my early days, I found that
breaks and continues were better and easier to understand. I will admit
that there are occasional nested if/elif/else code that get messy without a
goto. But which smells worse? A "goto" package or a complex if/elif/else?

Ben Root

On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 2:41 PM, Charles R Harris <charlesr.harris at gmail.com
> wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 12:13 PM, Yarko Tymciurak <yarkot1 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 12:54 PM, Alexander Eberspächer <
>> alex.eberspaecher at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 24.09.2015 13:25, Christophe Bal wrote:
>>>
>>> > Can you give an example where GOTO is useful ?
>>>
>>> I think those pieces of code are best understood with some humour..
>>>
>>> However, basically I can think two main causes for using goto:
>>>
>>> 1. Stop whatever your code is doing and jump towards the end of the
>>> program. However, this is mainly something useful for languages without
>>> exception handling and garbage collection.
>>>
>>> 2. Get out of something deeply nested. Also, this probably isn't very
>>> useful in Python as there's exception handling.
>>>
>>
>> I think there are more valid uses - I've read that "goto" basically is
>> what a state machine does.
>> Have a read of the brief implementation notes for "goto" in golang, for
>> example.  Goto may not be unreasonable to use, just most people would
>> abuse.  Sort of like "everyone shouldn't write assembly, but if you
>> understand the machine, you can make good things happen".  Without
>> compiler/interpreter checks, more responsibility rests on the coder to keep
>> out of trouble.
>>
>
> I would agree about state machines. When implemented using the standard
> control flow constructs they always look a bit artificial.
>
> Chuck
>
>
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