callbacks are like goto in that you can create terrible code by using them badly, but also they are vital to implementing good code. if, for, while and co are a

callbacks are like goto in that you can create terrible code by using them badly, but also they are vital to implementing good code. if, for, while and co are all syntactic sugar for correct and standardised use of goto with hints to help the compiler make optimisation. in both cases though we don't something universally evil or bad - just something that bad programmers can and will abuse.