Re: proposal: state machine syntax also usable for continue / nested break

[Roberto Ierusalimschy <roberto@...>]

> Roberto Ierusalimschy wrote:
> >>There was very good reason for that battle cry.
> >Certainly there was. 40 years ago. At that time, most people used
> >FORTRAN IV or assembler, which do not have ifs or whiles. Most
> >people learned to program without ever seeing proper control
> >structures. Programmers not only had to use gotos; they did not have
> >proper mental models to organize those gotos.
> >
> >Things changed a little since then.
> >
> >-- Roberto
> Roberto,
> 
> It would be nice if you knew the history to which you refer. [...]

Do not worry, I do. Sorry to write "most people used FORTRAN" instead
of "most people used languages that, like FORTRAN IV or assembler, did
not offer the now conventional control structures defended by Dijkstra
(sequence, selection, and repetition) that we now find in virtually
all imperative languages". (Even "sequence" was not that obvious, as
several languages offered implicit gotos attached to each statement
[e.g.,  SNOBOL].)  I considered that I did not have to write the whole
story just to make my point.

-- Roberto