I beg to differ. "Never, never, never use goto!" is one
of those programming mantras which are taught to beginners
because at that level, the temptation is to use it where it
is not appropriate. However, as a developer becomes more
experienced, the usefulness, clarity, and simplicity of an
unencumbered "jump over there" instruction make it more
valuable when used sparingly and appropriately. And in this
case, an exception handler of a sort that basically says "go
back three lines and try it again," the use is very appropriate.
While we are drifing dangerously offtopic, I am going to ask you
to reconsider the two snippets above, and tell me which is actually
more readable -- the one that obfuscates a goto with a while loop, or
the one that explicity uses the goto when the goto is EXACTLY the
instruction being used in both, algorithmically.
Spud Zeppelin * spud@spudzeppelin.com