[an error occurred while processing this directive]
considered harmful
![[prev]](../gif/left.gif)
![[up]](../gif/up.gif)
![[next]](../gif/right.gif)
considered harmful /adj./ Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the
March 1968 "Communications of the ACM", "Goto Statement
Considered Harmful", fired the first salvo in the structured
programming wars (text at http://www.acm.org/classics).
Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently
harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print an article taking
so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing
decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies have
borne titles of the form "X considered Y". The
structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the
realization that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has
remained as a persistent minor in-joke (the `considered silly'
found at various places in this lexicon is related).
Return to Cool Jargon of the Day