Actually read the TFA (and the links to the trademark in question) and you can see that:
1. Fluke did not trademark yellow multimeters.
2. The yellow multimeters from a google image search bear no resemblance to the distinct Fluke branding.
From USPTO:
Description of Mark: The mark consists of the colors dark gray and yellow as applied to the goods. The dotted outline of the goods is intended to show the position of the mark and is not a part of the mark.
Color(s) Claimed: Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark.
If you look at an image of SparkFun's multimeter, there is a striking resemblance. I have had a Fluke for over a decade now, and I love it. I also have an off brand that I got at RS that I kept in the car for roadside repairs, if necessary.
One aspect of the invention involves a method that includes: in a first area of the touch screen, displaying a current character string being input by a user with the keyboard; in a second area of the touch screen, displaying the current character string or a portion thereof and a suggested replacement for the current character string; replacing the current character string in the first area with the suggested replacement if the user activates a delimiter key on the keyboard; replacing the current character string in the first area with the suggested replacement if the user performs a first gesture on the suggested replacement displayed in the second area; and keeping the current character string in the first area if the user performs a second gesture on the current character string or the portion thereof displayed in the second area.
So, you got a touch screen. User hits a "key" on the touch screen, autocomplete commences. User hits another key, selection changes, user hits backspace, selection changes. Lacking other prior art (that I know exists), Visual Studio 6 (circa 1999) had intellisense that does the exact same thing, except for "on a touch screen" which ought to be an obvious, and unpatentable extension. Granted (VC6 intellisense) it sucked, but still, prior art.
I was being argumentative on purpose, just to raise the issue. I certainly realize it is most convenient to prescribe the Earth as rotating around the Sun, as that relationship does have the most significant impact upon us. It is possibly that the Solar system rotating around the galactic center could have even more significant impact upon us (no pun intended, but see the dark matter/energy articles about possibly sending comets into the solar system).
A quick google of stats. In 2010, the top 1% paid 37.4% of all federal income tax. From The Tax Policy Center2,162.7B USD was collected in revenue from federal income tax. 37.4% of 2162.7B is 808.85B. So, they got a 1.24% "refund". And, you know what? I'm fine with that. I've never got a job from a poor person, and I'd wager that the 10B pales in comparison to all of the money given to low income types under various programs that never earned it.
Except money saved isn't out of circulation. Unless it's stuffed in a mattress. Money in a savings account, or invested in some sort of securities, whether in a 401k, IRA or traditional trading account is very much in circulation. It may not be liquid currency to you, but it is still very much in circulation. If in a savings account, that provides capital for a bank to turn around and grant loans. They receive interest on the loan, and they, in turn, pay you interest for the privilege of using your money for that purpose. Why the discrepancy between what the banks charge and what you receive? Well, they have expenses to pay. Employees, infrastructure, FDIC insurance premiums, etc. As far as investments go, in a typical long-only portfolio, you're buying stock (equity) in a company. Giving them cash for an ownership stake. That cash is intended to be used in some manner to grow the business. In turn, the company is worth more, and you can sell that ownership to someone else. Along the way, you often get dividends (which is basically revenue sharing with the owners).
Where you talk about growth, looking at raw scalar currency is, in fact meaningless, which is why almost no one does it, unless they're peddling an agenda and that's the only statistic they can find to prove it. More meaningful is adjusted growth, which accounts for inflation/deflation.
Much in the same way, the "unemployment rate" is an extremely misleading statistic, as it measures the number of people actively seeking employment and receiving unemployment benefits, against the number currently employed. At the last presidential election, it was indeed true that the unemployment rate fell, but it wasn't due to job creation/growth. The number of jobs was relatively static. The reason the rate fell was people leaving the job market due to prolonged unemployment.
Remember, there are only lies, damned lies, and statistics. Statistics can be spun any number of ways to prove an agenda.
Agreed. At my last job, I often interviewed candidates for C++ development positions. I asked a number of questions around maps.
Given a std::map<int, std::string> and a sorted std::vector<std::pair<int, std::string>>, on which will binary searches tend to be faster?
Per inserted element, what is the per-element memory overhead of each map entry? How about a vector? set?
If I create a map with 1000 entries, how many dynamic allocations occur (disregarding anything necessary for constructing either the key or value)? If I create a vector with 1000 entries, how many allocations occur?
These are 3 very clear, simple, yet revealing questions on how well someone understands the STL.
And you fail to understand the concept of an example. And the use of an example that everyone is familiar with (who, that has studied computer science, isn't familiar with the travelling salesmen?). The point the GP is making is that you need a semblance of theory (whether trained, or not). Yeah, you can google for an algorithm, but can you understand it? How does it work. Why does it work. What's its complexity? What's the worst case complexity? How do you tell if the algorithm is a good fit without some understanding of theory? It might work fine for your simple test data, but might blow up with real-world data.
Software needs to work correctly, first and foremost, but secondly, it should do it as efficiently as possible. Especially as we're moving to a more mobile, battery-powered world.
You'd be surprised how few people know the difference between (in C++):
std::string s;
and
std::string s = "";
What's the difference? They do the same thing, right? In both cases, 's' is initialized to an empty string. Yet, they're not the same. In every compiler I've looked at (GCC, ICC, Clang & VC), both generate different assembly code with the latter always being less efficient (calls to determine string length, possible memory allocs). In optimized builds, the former is generally a straight mem store. It's a difference of around 15-20 instructions versus 1. Why care? It's smaller, it's faster and it uses less power. And, it's a pessimism that so many software developers make unnecessarily. Why do they make this mistake? Because they don't understand the basics behind what they use/do.
Agreed. Discrete math is essential in CS. Among other aspects, set theory is fundamental to understanding relational databases and how to effectively & efficiently query data (of course it's useful for a number of other things, as well).
Strawman my ass, you only quote half the sentence and take it out of context. If you actually read the link, it talks about such strongly worded "considered harmful" essays are usually taken basically as scripture, and such feature, whatever it is, should never be used. Sure, Dijkstra was writing about Fortran, but he was influential enough that the philosophy carried over to other languages. "Don't ever use this".
And if I'd quoted Dijkstra, or said "thou shalt not use gotos" in a scriptural way, then you'd have a point. But I didn't do those any more than I said "gotos considered harmful". All of these things were raised by you, then dismissed buy you. And that's exactly what a strawman is.
In regards to defining spaghetti code, try google for a change:
Your definition comes from Wikipedia, and it comes without a specific citation. Now, take a look at the references at the bottom. The oldest one is 1977. From the book: "Structured programming for the COBOL programmer: design, documentation, coding, testing." Elsewhere the artcle points out: "author Paul Noll uses the terms spaghetti code and rat's nest as synonyms to describe poorly structured source code."
As I say, spaghetti code is the antonym to structured code. Always was. Deeply nested structured code is not spaghetti. A russian doll might be a suitable metaphor, but a plate of spaghetti is not. There is no structure in spaghetti.
I don't care how long you've been programming or what order you learned different idioms as they developed/were available, it doesn't make you right.
It doesn't make me right in and of itself. However that memory back to the days when structured code was still a topical issue is why I know for sure what spaghetti code is. And that's why I'm telling you. If you can find an earlier reference than 1977 that confirms your understanding, then you can say I'm wrong. Otherwise I'm right.
But never use it (with no evidence, examples)?
What's the point of examples? It's an absolute fact that you cannot dispute that every piece of code that uses a goto can be rewritten using proper control structures. I personally have not used a goto since the 1980s. And my career has included work on a commercial operating system, in which gotos were forbidden at all levels above the kernel. And that was conceived with C++ in the days before it even had exceptions.
(You might ask why gotos were permitted at the kernel level. And the answer is that the kernel engineers mixed assembly and C, and tended to think in assembler first, even if they then wrote in C. If questioned they would say that the goto was more efficient. And in those days of poor compiler optimisations they may have been right. But that argument generally doesn't apply with modern optimising compilers.)
What's the point of examples? It's an absolute fact that you cannot dispute that every piece of code that uses a goto can be rewritten using proper control structures. I personally have not used a goto since the 1980s.
What's the point of examples? The point of examples is to prove your point, to convince. You have not done so with me. You seem to think that I'm advocating liberal use of goto's. I'm not. I'm merely stating that they have their time and place and a blanket abolishment is unnecessary and unwise. Also, I'll call you on your "proper control structures". In C-like languages, control structures like "break" and "continue" are glorified goto's. 'switch' statements are glorified if-else chains that compiler can usually optimize very well. You want to talk strawman arguments, your sole argument is "goto is evil". Put up or shut up.
If I asserted that 'for' loops were evil, and unnecessary, because every 'for' loop could be written with an equivalent while loop doesn't make 'for' loops wrong; you'd think me mad. Maybe I just didn't drink enough Koo
I don't believe science can currently, and might possibly never, be able to explain everything. But what I can respect is empirical evidence, testable (and disprovable) theories.
Science can currently explain what happened right near the big bang, or what caused it. Religion can't explain existence, either, beyond "God did it." They both share a common flaw: Neither can explain existence.
To leading scientific theories, the universe, as we know, started at the big bang. Despite efforts to try and explain it, there's a lot of "we just don't know why/how it happened." The aftermath of the big bang is the first observable consequence we can currently see & understand.
Ask religion, they say God created the universe. But ask them why God created the universe, or why does God exist, and they have no reasonable explanation. It's because God is all-powerful and all-mighty and does whatever he/she wants (who knows, maybe God was bored that day and wanted to play a game of Civilization).
Well, if God exists and created us, what created God? Why does God exist? The usual answer I get is that "God just is". That's not an answer, that's a dodge. And if that were a valid answer, than why couldn't the universe "just exist", starting with the big bang? In both cases it's a bit of "turtles all the way down", but the big difference is science admits it doesn't know and is actively trying to understand. Religion just says don't challenge it, it's the way it is.
I've dropped my G1 & G2 onto concrete, and the most they received is scratches (and the battery compartment popping open & tossing the battery). I've dropped my Galaxy S3 on the bathroom tile, and it only has a small scratch on the peripheral of the front glass. All of these have occurred from chest height (and I'm 6' tall). What are you doing to your phone that you are constantly breaking the glass? The S3 is the first I've ever but a protector on, and mostly because I put an extended battery in that doesn't fit inside the standard case.
The point was, in context, the car should not be allowed to into conditions it's not proven to be able to handle; if it is sent into those conditions, fails and kills someone, who is liable?
Okay, I'll bite, give me one example of your proof that doesn't involve the bible. And I think that subjective proof will always be, well, subjective. I'm talking about rational proof. Something that can be tested, and proven.
So now I ask: Is love real? Perhaps you haven't lived long enough to give a good answer to that one; what about truth? Is the truth real? Did I make it up, or was it made up by men long ago? Or is it, rather, a real thing? Whether anyone knows them or not, are there truths out there, waiting, perhaps, to be discovered?
I really have no argument here. Best answer I can half-ass up is that love is a biochemical response telling me to procreate and protect my young. Some would say that love is an entirely human emotion; I'm not so sure. I have two cats, both fixed (didn't realize they were broken...), one male, one female. Despite the initial 2-3 days of hissing, clawing and fighting, they now, for a lack of a better term, love each other from my point of view. I often observe them cleaning each other's faces, for instance. They're also fond of sleeping together(not giggity); I often come home to find the two of them curled up in my arm chair. If one of them is missing, I often find the other looking for the missing. I don't know how you'd quantitatively assess love, but qualitatively, my two fuzzballs seem to have it.
But, I'm not a scientist, I'm an engineer. I'm tasked with taking the shit you guys dream up and building something useful from it.
Strawman my ass, you only quote half the sentence and take it out of context. If you actually read the link, it talks about such strongly worded "considered harmful" essays are usually taken basically as scripture, and such feature, whatever it is, should never be used. Sure, Dijkstra was writing about Fortran, but he was influential enough that the philosophy carried over to other languages. "Don't ever use this".
In regards to defining spaghetti code, try google for a change:
Spaghetti code is a pejorative term for source code that has a complex and tangled control structure, especially one using many GOTOs, exceptions, threads, or other "unstructured" branching constructs.
(emphasis mine). Spaghetti code doesn't necessitate goto's, but I'll grant poor use can lead to it. Using goto doesn't mean spaghetti code.
I don't care how long you've been programming or what order you learned different idioms as they developed/were available, it doesn't make you right.
I'm not advocating prolific use of goto's, but they have their place, and when used correctly, they can lead to more readable, and, perhaps, more efficient code. But never use it (with no evidence, examples)? If you want a strawman argument, that is it.
do {...} while(0); is unnecessary since C++03, (maybe even 98). You can just use {...} to accomplish the same thing. goto's still have there place, and they still have their pitfalls. But, a good compiler will warn you about the most of them (such as jumping over initialization/destruction).
No problem. It was over 50 printed pages at 80 lines per page (some wrapped). Last time I bothered to check, it was a bit over 3000 lines, without wrapping. Yes, I tried to refactor, but that was a loosing battle given the resources and pressures at the time.
It also makes the case for using at least a minimum of C++ over bare C just for the RAII capabilities constructors/destructors afford you. Even if you don't want to take advantage of templates, the expanded (but limited) library.
You also have a bug. Strings imply 3 inputs, but you check "input2" against NULL twice. So, you have unreachable code and the compiler would likely eliminate the 3rd conditional.
1. "nested brackets" (blocks) are by definition not spaghetti. Spaghetti is exclusively the result of gotos and their control equivalents (like the early return).
Bullshit. One of the projects at my last job had a single function in C++ that was over 50 printed pages. 5-deep nested loops, not even counting conditionals. On a 1280p resolution monitor, 8pt font, 4 space-tabbing and properly indented code, the start of the deepest nested blocks were 4/5s or more across the screen. A lot of the crap was due to avoiding goto's. That is spaghetti. By using a few judicial goto's, I was able to reduce the code by a third alone. Goto's are not evil. Like any language construct, they can be abused. Just because one famous guy wrote a paper Go To Considered Harmful doesn't make it scripture. You might want to read "Considered Harmful" Essays Considered Harmful. Just because *you* don't understand when to properly use a construct doesn't make the construct evil or wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually read the TFA (and the links to the trademark in question) and you can see that:
1. Fluke did not trademark yellow multimeters.
2. The yellow multimeters from a google image search bear no resemblance to the distinct Fluke branding.
From USPTO:
Description of Mark: The mark consists of the colors dark gray and yellow as applied to the goods. The dotted outline of the goods is intended to show the position of the mark and is not a part of the mark. Color(s) Claimed: Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark.
If you look at an image of SparkFun's multimeter, there is a striking resemblance. I have had a Fluke for over a decade now, and I love it. I also have an off brand that I got at RS that I kept in the car for roadside repairs, if necessary.
One aspect of the invention involves a method that includes: in a first area of the touch screen, displaying a current character string being input by a user with the keyboard; in a second area of the touch screen, displaying the current character string or a portion thereof and a suggested replacement for the current character string; replacing the current character string in the first area with the suggested replacement if the user activates a delimiter key on the keyboard; replacing the current character string in the first area with the suggested replacement if the user performs a first gesture on the suggested replacement displayed in the second area; and keeping the current character string in the first area if the user performs a second gesture on the current character string or the portion thereof displayed in the second area.
So, you got a touch screen. User hits a "key" on the touch screen, autocomplete commences. User hits another key, selection changes, user hits backspace, selection changes. Lacking other prior art (that I know exists), Visual Studio 6 (circa 1999) had intellisense that does the exact same thing, except for "on a touch screen" which ought to be an obvious, and unpatentable extension. Granted (VC6 intellisense) it sucked, but still, prior art.
Wish I could mod this up....but you're on my thread. But, you, sir, understand it.
I was being argumentative on purpose, just to raise the issue. I certainly realize it is most convenient to prescribe the Earth as rotating around the Sun, as that relationship does have the most significant impact upon us. It is possibly that the Solar system rotating around the galactic center could have even more significant impact upon us (no pun intended, but see the dark matter/energy articles about possibly sending comets into the solar system).
A quick google of stats. In 2010, the top 1% paid 37.4% of all federal income tax. From The Tax Policy Center2,162.7B USD was collected in revenue from federal income tax. 37.4% of 2162.7B is 808.85B. So, they got a 1.24% "refund". And, you know what? I'm fine with that. I've never got a job from a poor person, and I'd wager that the 10B pales in comparison to all of the money given to low income types under various programs that never earned it.
Except money saved isn't out of circulation. Unless it's stuffed in a mattress. Money in a savings account, or invested in some sort of securities, whether in a 401k, IRA or traditional trading account is very much in circulation. It may not be liquid currency to you, but it is still very much in circulation. If in a savings account, that provides capital for a bank to turn around and grant loans. They receive interest on the loan, and they, in turn, pay you interest for the privilege of using your money for that purpose. Why the discrepancy between what the banks charge and what you receive? Well, they have expenses to pay. Employees, infrastructure, FDIC insurance premiums, etc. As far as investments go, in a typical long-only portfolio, you're buying stock (equity) in a company. Giving them cash for an ownership stake. That cash is intended to be used in some manner to grow the business. In turn, the company is worth more, and you can sell that ownership to someone else. Along the way, you often get dividends (which is basically revenue sharing with the owners).
Where you talk about growth, looking at raw scalar currency is, in fact meaningless, which is why almost no one does it, unless they're peddling an agenda and that's the only statistic they can find to prove it. More meaningful is adjusted growth, which accounts for inflation/deflation.
Much in the same way, the "unemployment rate" is an extremely misleading statistic, as it measures the number of people actively seeking employment and receiving unemployment benefits, against the number currently employed. At the last presidential election, it was indeed true that the unemployment rate fell, but it wasn't due to job creation/growth. The number of jobs was relatively static. The reason the rate fell was people leaving the job market due to prolonged unemployment.
Remember, there are only lies, damned lies, and statistics. Statistics can be spun any number of ways to prove an agenda.
Agreed. At my last job, I often interviewed candidates for C++ development positions. I asked a number of questions around maps.
These are 3 very clear, simple, yet revealing questions on how well someone understands the STL.
And you fail to understand the concept of an example. And the use of an example that everyone is familiar with (who, that has studied computer science, isn't familiar with the travelling salesmen?). The point the GP is making is that you need a semblance of theory (whether trained, or not). Yeah, you can google for an algorithm, but can you understand it? How does it work. Why does it work. What's its complexity? What's the worst case complexity? How do you tell if the algorithm is a good fit without some understanding of theory? It might work fine for your simple test data, but might blow up with real-world data.
Software needs to work correctly, first and foremost, but secondly, it should do it as efficiently as possible. Especially as we're moving to a more mobile, battery-powered world.
You'd be surprised how few people know the difference between (in C++):
std::string s;
and
std::string s = "";
What's the difference? They do the same thing, right? In both cases, 's' is initialized to an empty string. Yet, they're not the same. In every compiler I've looked at (GCC, ICC, Clang & VC), both generate different assembly code with the latter always being less efficient (calls to determine string length, possible memory allocs). In optimized builds, the former is generally a straight mem store. It's a difference of around 15-20 instructions versus 1. Why care? It's smaller, it's faster and it uses less power. And, it's a pessimism that so many software developers make unnecessarily. Why do they make this mistake? Because they don't understand the basics behind what they use/do.
Agreed. Discrete math is essential in CS. Among other aspects, set theory is fundamental to understanding relational databases and how to effectively & efficiently query data (of course it's useful for a number of other things, as well).
Strawman my ass, you only quote half the sentence and take it out of context. If you actually read the link, it talks about such strongly worded "considered harmful" essays are usually taken basically as scripture, and such feature, whatever it is, should never be used. Sure, Dijkstra was writing about Fortran, but he was influential enough that the philosophy carried over to other languages. "Don't ever use this".
And if I'd quoted Dijkstra, or said "thou shalt not use gotos" in a scriptural way, then you'd have a point. But I didn't do those any more than I said "gotos considered harmful". All of these things were raised by you, then dismissed buy you. And that's exactly what a strawman is.
In regards to defining spaghetti code, try google for a change:
Your definition comes from Wikipedia, and it comes without a specific citation. Now, take a look at the references at the bottom. The oldest one is 1977. From the book: "Structured programming for the COBOL programmer: design, documentation, coding, testing." Elsewhere the artcle points out: "author Paul Noll uses the terms spaghetti code and rat's nest as synonyms to describe poorly structured source code."
As I say, spaghetti code is the antonym to structured code. Always was. Deeply nested structured code is not spaghetti. A russian doll might be a suitable metaphor, but a plate of spaghetti is not. There is no structure in spaghetti.
I don't care how long you've been programming or what order you learned different idioms as they developed/were available, it doesn't make you right.
It doesn't make me right in and of itself. However that memory back to the days when structured code was still a topical issue is why I know for sure what spaghetti code is. And that's why I'm telling you. If you can find an earlier reference than 1977 that confirms your understanding, then you can say I'm wrong. Otherwise I'm right.
But never use it (with no evidence, examples)?
What's the point of examples? It's an absolute fact that you cannot dispute that every piece of code that uses a goto can be rewritten using proper control structures. I personally have not used a goto since the 1980s. And my career has included work on a commercial operating system, in which gotos were forbidden at all levels above the kernel. And that was conceived with C++ in the days before it even had exceptions.
(You might ask why gotos were permitted at the kernel level. And the answer is that the kernel engineers mixed assembly and C, and tended to think in assembler first, even if they then wrote in C. If questioned they would say that the goto was more efficient. And in those days of poor compiler optimisations they may have been right. But that argument generally doesn't apply with modern optimising compilers.)
What's the point of examples? It's an absolute fact that you cannot dispute that every piece of code that uses a goto can be rewritten using proper control structures. I personally have not used a goto since the 1980s.
What's the point of examples? The point of examples is to prove your point, to convince. You have not done so with me. You seem to think that I'm advocating liberal use of goto's. I'm not. I'm merely stating that they have their time and place and a blanket abolishment is unnecessary and unwise. Also, I'll call you on your "proper control structures". In C-like languages, control structures like "break" and "continue" are glorified goto's. 'switch' statements are glorified if-else chains that compiler can usually optimize very well. You want to talk strawman arguments, your sole argument is "goto is evil". Put up or shut up.
If I asserted that 'for' loops were evil, and unnecessary, because every 'for' loop could be written with an equivalent while loop doesn't make 'for' loops wrong; you'd think me mad. Maybe I just didn't drink enough Koo
I don't believe science can currently, and might possibly never, be able to explain everything. But what I can respect is empirical evidence, testable (and disprovable) theories.
Science can currently explain what happened right near the big bang, or what caused it. Religion can't explain existence, either, beyond "God did it." They both share a common flaw: Neither can explain existence.
To leading scientific theories, the universe, as we know, started at the big bang. Despite efforts to try and explain it, there's a lot of "we just don't know why/how it happened." The aftermath of the big bang is the first observable consequence we can currently see & understand.
Ask religion, they say God created the universe. But ask them why God created the universe, or why does God exist, and they have no reasonable explanation. It's because God is all-powerful and all-mighty and does whatever he/she wants (who knows, maybe God was bored that day and wanted to play a game of Civilization).
Well, if God exists and created us, what created God? Why does God exist? The usual answer I get is that "God just is". That's not an answer, that's a dodge. And if that were a valid answer, than why couldn't the universe "just exist", starting with the big bang? In both cases it's a bit of "turtles all the way down", but the big difference is science admits it doesn't know and is actively trying to understand. Religion just says don't challenge it, it's the way it is.
I've dropped my G1 & G2 onto concrete, and the most they received is scratches (and the battery compartment popping open & tossing the battery). I've dropped my Galaxy S3 on the bathroom tile, and it only has a small scratch on the peripheral of the front glass. All of these have occurred from chest height (and I'm 6' tall). What are you doing to your phone that you are constantly breaking the glass? The S3 is the first I've ever but a protector on, and mostly because I put an extended battery in that doesn't fit inside the standard case.
Another free option for .Net is jetBeans dotPeak. It's worked fairly well for me.
That's basically my point: the term has been subverted from its original meaning and been given a new, confusing and contradictory meaning.
As an Atheist, the logical reason is retribution. (I kill you, they kill me). Being an Atheist doesn't mean not believing in natural human laws.
The point was, in context, the car should not be allowed to into conditions it's not proven to be able to handle; if it is sent into those conditions, fails and kills someone, who is liable?
Okay, I'll bite, give me one example of your proof that doesn't involve the bible. And I think that subjective proof will always be, well, subjective. I'm talking about rational proof. Something that can be tested, and proven.
So now I ask: Is love real? Perhaps you haven't lived long enough to give a good answer to that one; what about truth? Is the truth real? Did I make it up, or was it made up by men long ago? Or is it, rather, a real thing? Whether anyone knows them or not, are there truths out there, waiting, perhaps, to be discovered?
I really have no argument here. Best answer I can half-ass up is that love is a biochemical response telling me to procreate and protect my young. Some would say that love is an entirely human emotion; I'm not so sure. I have two cats, both fixed (didn't realize they were broken...), one male, one female. Despite the initial 2-3 days of hissing, clawing and fighting, they now, for a lack of a better term, love each other from my point of view. I often observe them cleaning each other's faces, for instance. They're also fond of sleeping together(not giggity); I often come home to find the two of them curled up in my arm chair. If one of them is missing, I often find the other looking for the missing. I don't know how you'd quantitatively assess love, but qualitatively, my two fuzzballs seem to have it.
But, I'm not a scientist, I'm an engineer. I'm tasked with taking the shit you guys dream up and building something useful from it.
Strawman my ass, you only quote half the sentence and take it out of context. If you actually read the link, it talks about such strongly worded "considered harmful" essays are usually taken basically as scripture, and such feature, whatever it is, should never be used. Sure, Dijkstra was writing about Fortran, but he was influential enough that the philosophy carried over to other languages. "Don't ever use this".
In regards to defining spaghetti code, try google for a change:
Spaghetti code is a pejorative term for source code that has a complex and tangled control structure, especially one using many GOTOs, exceptions, threads, or other "unstructured" branching constructs.
(emphasis mine). Spaghetti code doesn't necessitate goto's, but I'll grant poor use can lead to it. Using goto doesn't mean spaghetti code.
I don't care how long you've been programming or what order you learned different idioms as they developed/were available, it doesn't make you right.
I'm not advocating prolific use of goto's, but they have their place, and when used correctly, they can lead to more readable, and, perhaps, more efficient code. But never use it (with no evidence, examples)? If you want a strawman argument, that is it.
do {...} while(0); is unnecessary since C++03, (maybe even 98). You can just use {...} to accomplish the same thing. goto's still have there place, and they still have their pitfalls. But, a good compiler will warn you about the most of them (such as jumping over initialization/destruction).
No problem. It was over 50 printed pages at 80 lines per page (some wrapped). Last time I bothered to check, it was a bit over 3000 lines, without wrapping. Yes, I tried to refactor, but that was a loosing battle given the resources and pressures at the time.
It also makes the case for using at least a minimum of C++ over bare C just for the RAII capabilities constructors/destructors afford you. Even if you don't want to take advantage of templates, the expanded (but limited) library.
You also have a bug. Strings imply 3 inputs, but you check "input2" against NULL twice. So, you have unreachable code and the compiler would likely eliminate the 3rd conditional.
1. "nested brackets" (blocks) are by definition not spaghetti. Spaghetti is exclusively the result of gotos and their control equivalents (like the early return).
Bullshit. One of the projects at my last job had a single function in C++ that was over 50 printed pages. 5-deep nested loops, not even counting conditionals. On a 1280p resolution monitor, 8pt font, 4 space-tabbing and properly indented code, the start of the deepest nested blocks were 4/5s or more across the screen. A lot of the crap was due to avoiding goto's. That is spaghetti. By using a few judicial goto's, I was able to reduce the code by a third alone. Goto's are not evil. Like any language construct, they can be abused. Just because one famous guy wrote a paper Go To Considered Harmful doesn't make it scripture. You might want to read "Considered Harmful" Essays Considered Harmful. Just because *you* don't understand when to properly use a construct doesn't make the construct evil or wrong.
MS09-056, found and fixed around 4 years ago. No word on how long it was present before being found, though.