To decide whether to optimise/not optimise or use goto/avoid goto you need some amount of experience. Thus, people with no such experience resort to the rules o

To decide whether to optimise/not optimise or use goto/avoid goto you need some amount of experience. Thus, people with no such experience resort to the rules of thumb (don't optimise, don't use gotos). From there it's a little step to trying to impose the rule dogmatically on the others.