🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3147F456.50F0@simi.is>, Björn Helgason <bjornhp@simi.is> writes:
|> In most instances they are not needed. I might add that in ALL cases
|> you could avoid GOTOs and LOOPs if you really put your mind to it.

Hmm. Doesn't seem that way to me. There are certain analysis
algorithms that must be sequential. One could for example use some
parallel algorithm to solve an ode initial value problem, but this
will have problems with real world nonlinearities and hysteresis and
discrete states (I deal with these all the time in spacecraft dynamics
and control problems). Then there's the field of real time simulation
- where I have real hardware I'm trying to control, mixed with
(digital) control software and (analog) dynamics simulation.
Processes like simulation are inherently sequential, and must be
handled by some kind of loop. Recursion as a concept could be used,
but you still have a loop. Recursion seems much more useful a concept
when what you do at each stage changes (e.g. the factorial
computation).

|> In the most advanced of languages, J , there were no GOTOs or LOOPs in 
|> the beginning. They have been introduced in the most recent versions
|> of J and are now a well appreciated part of J.

Hmm. Goto's were in existance in J from the beginning, in the suite
($...), though I can't say about the very first version of the code.

-- 
Sam Sirlin                Jet Propulsion Laboratory         
Email: sam@kalessin.jpl.nasa.gov