In computer science and related disciplines, considered harmful is a phrase popularly used in the titles of diatribes and other critical essays (there are at least 65 such works). It was popularized by Edsger Dijkstra's letter Go To Statement Considered Harmful, published in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM (CACM), in which he criticized the excessive use of the GOTO statement in programming languages of the day and advocated structured programming instead. The original title of the letter, as submitted to CACM, was A Case Against the Goto Statement, but CACM editor Niklaus Wirth changed the title to the now immortalized Go To Statement Considered Harmful. Regarding this new title, Donald Knuth quipped that "Dr. Goto cheerfully complained that he was always being eliminated."
Frank Rubin published a criticism of Dijkstra's letter in the March 1987 CACM where it appeared under the title 'GOTO Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful. The May 1987 CACM printed further replies, both for and against, under the title '"GOTO Considered Harmful" Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful?. Dijkstra's own response to this controversy was titled On a Somewhat Disappointing Correspondence.
According to linguist Mark Liberman, considered harmful was a journalistic cliché, used in headlines, well before the Dijkstra article. He cites the headline over a letter published August 12, 1949 in The New York Times: "Rent Control Controversy / Enacting Now of Hasty Legislation Considered Harmful".
Read more about Considered Harmful: Variants, Related Essays
Famous quotes containing the words considered and/or harmful:
“I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.”
—Simone Weil (1910–1943)
“We are still barely conscious of how harmful it is to treat children in a degrading manner. Treating them with respect and recognizing the consequences of their being humiliated are by no means intellectual matters; otherwise, their importance would long since have been generally recognized.”
—Alice Miller (20th century)