Computers for children

From: Sam Ismail <dastar_at_ncal.verio.com>
Date: Fri Jan 15 01:37:49 1999

On Thu, 14 Jan 1999, Uncle Roger wrote:

> Every BASIC I've ever used had a for-next construct as follows:
>
> FOR variable = start TO end [BY inc]
> commands
> NEXT [variable]

I've never seen a "BY" modifier although I wouldn't doubt that some BASIC
could have been designed with it. But are you sure you didn't mean
"STEP"?

> No GOTO was ever needed. However, it is just a simplified version of a
> combination IF and GOTO.

Remember, C has a goto statement, although I don't think in my nearly 10
years of C programming I've ever used it, although on certain rare
occasions it seemed the easy way out to a sticky coding problem. There is
certainly a sublime satisfaction in designing elegant code with do..while
and while loops (I rarely use for's), but C really suffers from a lack of
a general error trapping mechanism that one can invoke to break out of
loops as required. Sometimes I think goto's are the answer but I can
never find an appropriate way to implement it.

Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Received on Fri Jan 15 1999 - 01:37:49 GMT

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