"Go To Statement Considered Harmful"
E79784
"Go To Statement Considered Harmful" is a famous 1968 letter by Edsger W. Dijkstra that argued against the use of the goto statement in programming, helping to popularize structured programming principles.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" canonical | 1 |
| Edsger W. Dijkstra's "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" | 1 |
| Go To Statement Considered Harmful | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T636103 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" Context triple: [Edsger W. Dijkstra, knownFor, "Go To Statement Considered Harmful"]
-
A.
Programming Pearls
Programming Pearls is a classic computer science book by Jon Bentley that teaches practical problem-solving, algorithm design, and programming techniques through engaging essays and puzzles.
-
B.
Working Effectively with Legacy Code
Working Effectively with Legacy Code is a widely respected software engineering book by Michael Feathers that teaches practical techniques for understanding, testing, and safely modifying existing codebases.
-
C.
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
"Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code" is a seminal software engineering book by Martin Fowler that systematically defines refactoring techniques to improve code structure while preserving behavior.
-
D.
The Danger of Software Patents
"The Danger of Software Patents" is an essay by Richard Stallman warning that software patents threaten innovation, restrict programmers' freedom, and endanger the development and distribution of free software.
-
E.
The Minimalist Program
The Minimalist Program is a major theoretical framework in generative linguistics, developed by Noam Chomsky, that seeks to explain the properties of human language through the simplest and most economical principles and mechanisms.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" Target entity description: "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" is a famous 1968 letter by Edsger W. Dijkstra that argued against the use of the goto statement in programming, helping to popularize structured programming principles.
-
A.
Programming Pearls
Programming Pearls is a classic computer science book by Jon Bentley that teaches practical problem-solving, algorithm design, and programming techniques through engaging essays and puzzles.
-
B.
Working Effectively with Legacy Code
Working Effectively with Legacy Code is a widely respected software engineering book by Michael Feathers that teaches practical techniques for understanding, testing, and safely modifying existing codebases.
-
C.
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
"Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code" is a seminal software engineering book by Martin Fowler that systematically defines refactoring techniques to improve code structure while preserving behavior.
-
D.
The Danger of Software Patents
"The Danger of Software Patents" is an essay by Richard Stallman warning that software patents threaten innovation, restrict programmers' freedom, and endanger the development and distribution of free software.
-
E.
The Minimalist Program
The Minimalist Program is a major theoretical framework in generative linguistics, developed by Noam Chomsky, that seeks to explain the properties of human language through the simplest and most economical principles and mechanisms.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
academic article
ⓘ
computer science essay ⓘ letter ⓘ |
| aimedAtAudience |
computer scientists
ⓘ
programmers ⓘ |
| argument |
goto statement should be avoided in most circumstances
ⓘ
structured control constructs are preferable to goto ⓘ unrestricted goto complicates program verification ⓘ unrestricted goto harms program clarity ⓘ |
| author |
Edsger W. Dijkstra
ⓘ
Edsger W. Dijkstra ⓘ
surface form:
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra
|
| coinedOrPopularizedPhrase | Considered Harmful ⓘ |
| countryOfPublication |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| criticizedConstruct |
arbitrary jumps in code
ⓘ
unstructured control flow ⓘ |
| field |
computer science
ⓘ
software engineering ⓘ |
| hasAuthorAffiliation |
Eindhoven University of Technology
ⓘ
surface form:
Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven
|
| hasForm |
open letter
ⓘ
opinion piece ⓘ |
| hasImpactOn |
language features discouraging goto
ⓘ
structured programming education ⓘ |
| hasLegacy | inspired many later "Considered Harmful" titles ⓘ |
| historicalSignificance |
milestone in the history of programming methodology
ⓘ
sparked debate on goto usage ⓘ |
| influenced |
design of high-level programming languages
ⓘ
software engineering best practices ⓘ structured programming movement ⓘ teaching of programming ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
control flow
ⓘ
goto statement ⓘ program correctness ⓘ programming language design ⓘ structured programming ⓘ |
| notableFor |
being a classic paper in programming methodology
ⓘ
popularizing criticism of goto ⓘ popularizing structured programming principles ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| proposedAlternative |
sequence selection and iteration constructs
ⓘ
structured control flow ⓘ |
| publicationDecade | 1960s ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1968 ⓘ |
| publishedIn | Communications of the ACM ⓘ |
| publisher | Association for Computing Machinery ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
Böhm–Jacopini theorem
ⓘ
control structures ⓘ program verification ⓘ |
| titlePhrase | Considered Harmful ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" Description of subject: "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" is a famous 1968 letter by Edsger W. Dijkstra that argued against the use of the goto statement in programming, helping to popularize structured programming principles.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Go To Statement Considered Harmful
this entity surface form:
Edsger W. Dijkstra's "Go To Statement Considered Harmful"