Considered harmful
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In computer science and related disciplines, "considered harmful" is a phrase popularly used in the titles of diatribes and other critical essays. It originates with Edsger Dijkstra's letter "Go To Statement Considered Harmful",[1] published in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, in which he criticized the excessive use of the GOTO statement in programming languages of the day and advocated structured programming instead. The original title of the letter, as submitted to ACM, was "A Case Against the Goto Statement," but ACM editor, Niklaus Wirth, changed the title to the now immortalized "Go To Statement Considered Harmful."
Frank Rubin published a criticism of Dijkstra's letter in the March 1987 Communications of the ACM titled "'GOTO Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful". Donald Moore et al. published a reply in the May 1987 CACM titled "'"GOTO Considered Harmful" Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful?". (Dijkstra's own response to this controversy was thankfully titled "On a somewhat disappointing correspondence".[2])
Some variants with replacement adjectives ("considered silly", etc.) have been noted in hacker jargon.[3] The phrase is also occasionally capitalized for effect[citation needed].
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Dijkstra (1968), Go To Statement Considered Harmful, Communications of the ACM, March 1968
- ^ Dijkstra (1987), On a somewhat disappointing correspondence
- ^ Raymond et al, The Jargon File
[edit] External links
- "Considered Harmful" Essays Considered Harmful (Eric A. Meyer, Dec 2002).
- Creative Commons -NC Licenses Considered Harmful (Erik Möller, Sep 2005).
- Csh Programming Considered Harmful (Tom Christiansen, 6 Oct 1996)
- Go To Statement Considered Harmful: A Retrospective (David R. Tribble, Feb 2005).
- ...Considered Harmful (Trevor Gosbell, Aug 2003 issue of PC Update).
- Java's new Considered Harmful (Johnathan Amsterdam, Feb 2002 issue of Software Development Magazine)
- Recursive Make Considered Harmful (Peter Miller, 1998, AUUGN Journal of AUUG Inc., 19(1), pp. 14-25.)
