Few things can spark more religious fervour amongst programmers than the mention of a goto statement. PHP has stepped into the middle of the firefight by announcing that it will be implementing goto functionality in version 5.3.

There is plenty of discussion surrounding PHP's decision, with PHP founder Rasmus Lerdorf defending the move, stating it is no different than breaking to a label and that it will not be an unlimited goto (it will not let jumps into loops or switches).

Despite Lerdorf's assurances, the wailing and moaning continues relentlessly. Why is this? To understand, one must realise that the vast majority of programmers have been taught that goto is considered harmful, is a bad idea and will bring pestilence to the land if used. Most students are happy to accept this, generally based on the experience of writing ridiculous spaghetti code in BASIC, so they move onto structured programming and eventually object-orientated programming.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/blogs/null-pointer/soa/If-PHP-then-goto-is-the-future/0,2001102868,339296865,00.htm

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