Editing 292: goto

{{comic
| number    = 292
| date      = July 20, 2007
| title     = goto
| image     = goto.png
| titletext = Neal Stephenson thinks it's cute to name his labels 'dengo'
}}

==Explanation==
''{{w|Goto}}'' is a construct found in many computer languages that causes control flow to go from one place in a program to another, without returning. Once common in computer programming, its popularity diminished in the 1960s and 1970s as focus on {{w|structured programming}} became the norm. {{w|Edsger W. Dijkstra}}'s article [https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/362929.362947 "Go To Statement Considered Harmful"] in particular contributed to the decline of ''goto.''

Often, people learning programming are told that ''goto'' is bad and should be avoided, but frequently, they are not given a good reason. [[Cueball]], as one of these people, sees no harm in using ''goto'' to avoid rewriting much of his program, most likely written in the C programming language. As a result, he is attacked by a [[velociraptor]]. Velociraptor attacks are a running joke (and fear) often expressed in [[xkcd]]. 

The name ''main_sub3'' of the ''goto'' destination also shows bad programming style: it is an unmeaningful name suggesting that at least two similarly unmeaningful names are used for other ''goto'' marks and it is contradictory in that a chunk of code can either belong to the main program or to a subroutine, but not both.

The title text refers to {{w|Neal Stephenson}}, an author of cyberpunk novels. A label is used in many programming languages to refer to a point in a program that a goto instruction (or other flow-control statements) can jump to. The joke is that one of Stephenson's characters in ''{{w|Cryptonomicon}}'' is named Goto Dengo. When said out loud, "Dengo" sounds like "Then go."

==Transcript==
:[Sideways view of Cueball sitting at computer, thinking.]
:Cueball: I could restructure the program's flow 
:Cueball: or use one little 'GOTO' instead.

:[Cueball starts typing.]
:Cueball: Eh, screw good practice. How bad can it be?
:Text on computer: <tt>goto main_sub3;</tt>
:<nowiki>*Compile*</nowiki>

:[We now have a view from behind Cueball. Cueball looks at the computer.]

:[A raptor jumps into the panel, pushing Cueball off his chair.]

==Trivia==
* Like all velociraptors in xkcd, the velociraptor in this comic is specifically the man-sized movie monster from ''{{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}}.''  Real velociraptors were more like [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vraptor-scale.png carnivorous turkeys.]  The beast devouring Cueball might actually be ''[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dromie_scale.png Deinonychus antirrhopus.]''
* This comic heads the official [http://php.net/manual/en/control-structures.goto.php PHP manual page on goto].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]
[[Category:Programming]]