View source for Go To Statement Considered Harmful

'''''Go To Statement Considered Harmful''''' is the name of a letter by [[Edsger Wybe Dijkstra|Edsger Dijkstra]] published in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM (CACM), in which he criticized the excessive use of the [[Goto|GOTO]] statement in programming languages of the day, and advocated [[structured programming]] instead.

== History ==

The original title of the letter, as submitted to CACM, was ''A Case Against the Goto Statement'', but CACM editor Niklaus Wirth changed the title to ''Go To Statement Considered Harmful''.

Frank Rubin published a criticism of Dijkstra's letter in the March 1987 CACM where it appeared under the title '''GOTO Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful''.

The May 1987 CACM printed further replies, both for and against, under the title '''"GOTO Considered Harmful" Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful?''.

Dijkstra's own response to this controversy was titled ''On a Somewhat Disappointing Correspondence''.

The phrase ''considered harmful'' has since appeared in numerous critical essays in computer science and related disciplines.

== Journalistic cliché ==

According to linguist Mark Liberman, ''considered harmful'' was a journalistic cliché, used in headlines, well before the Dijkstra article. He cites the headline over a letter published August 12, 1949 in The New York Times: "Rent Control Controversy / Enacting Now of Hasty Legislation Considered Harmful".

== See also ==

* [[Edsger Wybe Dijkstra]]
* [[Goto]]
* [[Imperative programming]]
* [[Software engineering]]
* [[Spaghetti code]]
* [[Statement (computer science)]]
* [[Structured programming]]

== External links == 

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Considered_harmful Considered harmful] @ Wikipedia

[[Category:Computer programming]]
[[Category:Computer science]]
[[Category:Software]]
[[Category:Software development]]