Use a 'goto' in a switch?

Question

I\'ve seen a suggested coding standard that reads Never use goto unless in a switch statement fall-through.

I don\'t follow. What exactly would this \'

Answer 1

By way of an extension to Mehrdad Afshari's advice above, I would never advocate simply exiling a construct as 'bad code' or 'bad coding practice'. Even 'goto' statements have their place in the grand scheme of things. The dogma that they are evil did not come to pass because of any inherent flaw in the construct - it was because they were heavily (and poorly) over-used.

In any case, Kernighan and Ritchie felt that allowing a case to fall through was the proper way to go. Frankly, I'm more inclined to trust their reasoning than anything that could conceivably come out of any mind in the whole of Redmond, Washington. Or any dogma that is predicated on the wisdom of any mind in Redmond.

If you ever hear 'Never use xxx', mentally append that with 'without cause'. Just tossing out anything dogmatically is ridiculous. Devices exist because there was a reason to make them. They are, in hindsight, usually referred to as 'bad' not because of any fault in the device itself, but rather because they were employed poorly by people who did not fully understand them. Thus, the device is hardly ever 'bad'. What is almost always bad is user comprehension. This is true even of atomic fission and fusion.

I've seen horrendously grotesque code structures whose sole function was to avoid the use of a 'goto' statement. What is worse? "goto [label]", or 30 lines of disgusting code whose function is to avoid having to type "goto [label]"?

Seek knowledge before dogma. Think before you act. These are useful advices.