GOTO is an easy target due to its cultural notoriety (regardless of how it actually looked in the past), but the overarching argument is indeed against dogma. T

GOTO is an easy target due to its cultural notoriety (regardless of how it actually looked in the past), but the overarching argument is indeed against dogma. To quote Donald Knuth: "In the late 1960's we witnessed a "software crisis", which many people thought was paradoxical because programming was supposed to be so easy. As a result of the crisis, people are now beginning to renounce every feature of programming that can be considered guilty by virtue of its association with difficulties. Not only go to statements are being questioned; we also hear complaints about floating-point calculations, global variables, semaphores, pointer variables, and even assignment statements. Soon we might be restricted to only a dozen or so programs that are sufficiently simple to be allowable; then we will be almost certain that these programs cannot lead us into any trouble, but of course we won't be able to solve many problems." It's a problem as old as time itself: A smart person makes an observation based on deep understanding, and the rest, rather than go through the cognitive load of learning its fundamental roots, convert it to an easy statement of morality and dogma, shrouding it deeper and deeper with ceremony and pomp to create a mystique that none dare investigate. Thinking is hard, and takes much energy. Most people prefer to keep that to a minimum, thus our superstitions, dogmas, cults, and priesthoods.