On Fri, 17 May 1996, terogers wrote:

> & boy, if you do that structured stuff by the book, it sure can get in
> the way; I have yet to see any technique that a really good programmer
> doesn't already use >> when it applies << . The rest of it can go jump
> in the lake.

I'm not sure if we agree or not.  I have little use for the stylistic
rules _as such_, but find the underlying principles of inestimable
value.  Sure, 90% of all loops you can code by the seat of your
[experienced] pants - maybe I should say 99%? - but when you do run into
the occasional tangled mess it's really, really good to be comfortable
thinking about the loops' invariants.  And the only places I've ever run
into good discussion about such things were in texts on structured
programming.  Perhaps the problem is that such meaty stuff gets glossed
over in the popular texts.

> P.S. If you saw the interview of Knuth in DDJ last month, you might get
> the idea he wouldn't necessarily agree with my point of view...

I'll have to look that up if I get the chance.  One of my all-time
favorite articles on programming has to be Knuth's "Structured
Programming With Goto Statments".