"while/else" (ugh) (was Re: [oclug] Ruby)

[Michael P. Soulier]

On 27/06/03 David F. Skoll did speaketh:

> That's really ugly.  How does "else" come into it?  The behavior
> doesn't match what I'd expect intuitively.  (By "intuitively",
> I mean something matching the English definition of "else" at
> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=else)
> 
> In this case, I would even prefer a goto, as it's clearer:
> 
> while(condition) {
> 	do_something;
> 	if (something_extreme) goto escape
> }
> // cleanup code (the "else" stuff) goes here.
> 
> escape:
> // We skipped past the cleanup code.
> 
> Anyone can understand that, but hardly anyone understood the "else"
> thing.

    Perhaps, but I doubt it's the only programming construct that few
people understand when they see it for the first time. 

    How about upvar in Tcl? Pointers in C? Just about anything in C++?
The list goes on. That doesn't make them any less useful. 

    Mike

-- 
Michael P. Soulier <msoulier at digitaltorque.ca>, GnuPG pub key: 5BC8BE08
"...the word HACK is used as a verb to indicate a massive amount
of nerd-like effort."  -Harley Hahn, A Student's Guide to Unix
IM: msoulier at jabber.org
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