In 1968 the Communications of the ACM published a Letter to the Editor from E.W. Dijkstra (volume 11 (1968), pp 147–148). The Editor, perhaps a bit puzzled by the contents, summarized them by supplying as title “Goto Statement Considered Harmful”. The mere thought was sufficiently provocative to ensure that the idea spread like wildfire, initially to be dismissed, but soon to be blessed with universal approval. “Structured Programming” was born.
The most enthusiastic converts were the computer science professors. These people were doing research on esoteric topics like formal languages or graph theory and were press-ganged into teaching introductory programming. With little programming experience, they welcomed a clear rule (no GOTOs!) and reveled in the casuistry required for forcing non-conforming code into the straightjacket of the officially approved formats.
This essay is a thought experiment: suppose one had never heard of Structured Programming, that one wanted to solve a little programming problem by common sense reasoning; that this solution process not only had to supply the conviction of correctness, but also had to help discover the algorithm. My conclusion will be that these goals, though ambitious, are achievable, but that Structured Programming is at best a handicap.
A Programmers Place 