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POBeing pressured to GOTO the dark-side
 

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    <p>We have a situation at work where developers working on a legacy (core) system are being pressured into using GOTO statements when adding new features into existing code that is already infected with spaghetti code.</p> <p>Now, I understand there may be arguments for using 'just one little GOTO' instead of spending the time on refactoring to a more maintainable solution. The issue is, this isolated 'just one little GOTO' isn't so isolated. At least once every week or so there is a new 'one little GOTO' to add. This codebase is already a horror to work with due to code dating back to or before 1984 being riddled with GOTOs that would make many <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastafarian" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Pastafarians</a> believe it was inspired by the Flying Spaghetti Monster itself.</p> <p>Unfortunately the language this is written in doesn't have any ready made refactoring tools, so it makes it harder to push the 'Refactor to increase productivity later' because short-term wins are the only wins paid attention to here...</p> <p>Has anyone else experienced this issue whereby everybody agrees that we cannot be adding new GOTOs to jump 2000 lines to a random section, but continually have Anaylsts insist on doing it just this one time and having management approve it?</p> <p><strong>tldr;</strong></p> <p>How can one go about addressing the issue of developers being pressured (forced) to continually add GOTO statements (by add, I mean add to jump to random sections many lines away) because it 'gets <em>that</em> feature in quicker'?</p> <p>I'm beginning to fear we may lose valuable developers to the raptors over this...</p> <p><img src="https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/goto.png" alt="Credit: XKCD"></p> <p><strong>Clarification:</strong></p> <p><em>Goto</em> <code>here</code></p> <p><code>alsoThere:</code> No, I'm talking about the kind of goto that jumps 1000 lines out of one subroutine into another one mid way into a while loop. <em>Goto</em> <code>somewhereClose</code></p> <p><code>there:</code> I wasn't even talking about the kind of gotos you can reasonably read over and determine what a program was doing. <em>Goto</em> <code>alsoThere</code></p> <p><code>somewhereClose:</code> This is the sort of code that makes meatballs <code>midpoint:</code> <em>If first time here Goto</em> <code>nextpoint</code> <code>detail:</code>(each one almost completely different) <em>Goto</em> <code>pointlessReturn</code></p> <p><code>here:</code> In this question, I was not talking about the occasionally okay use of a goto. Goto <code>there</code></p> <p><code>tacoBell:</code> and it has just gone back to the drawing board. <em>Goto</em> <code>Jail</code></p> <p><code>elsewhere:</code> When it takes Analysts weeks to decypher what a program is doing each time it is touched, something is deeply wrong with your codebase. In fact, I'm actually up to my <code>hell:</code><em>if not up-to-date goto</em> <code>4</code> rendition of the spec <em>goto</em> <code>detail</code> <code>pointlessReturn:</code> <em>goto</em> <code>tacoBell</code></p> <p><code>Jail:</code> Actually, just a small update with a small victory. I spent 4 hours refactoring a portion of this particular program a single label at a time, saving each iteration in svn as I went. Each step (about 20 of them) was smallish, logical and easy enough to <em>goto</em> <code>bypass</code> <code>nextpoint:</code> spontaneously jump out of your meal and onto you screen through some weird sort of spaghetti-meatball magnetism. <em>Goto</em> <code>elseWhere</code> <code>bypass:</code> reasonably verify that it should not introduce any logic changes. Using this new more readable version, I've sat down with the analyst and completed almost all of this change now. <em>Goto</em> <code>end</code></p> <p><code>4:</code> first *if first time here goto <code>hell</code>, no second <em>if first time here goto</em> <code>hell</code>, no third <em>if first time here goto</em> <code>hell</code> fourth <em>now up-to-date goto</em> <code>hell</code></p> <p><code>end:</code></p>
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    1. COHave you tried telling the analysts, just this once, to GOTO hell?
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    2. COgoto careers.stackoverflow.com; careers.stackoverflow.com: post(resume);deliver(notice);
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