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* {{cite web | url = http://blog.nasm.si.edu/space/star-trek-considered-harmful/ | title = Star Trek Considered Harmful | author = Paul Ceruzzi |date=June 2015}}
* {{cite web | url = http://blog.nasm.si.edu/space/star-trek-considered-harmful/ | title = Star Trek Considered Harmful | author = Paul Ceruzzi |date=June 2015}}
* {{cite web | url = http://www.openldap.org/lists/openldap-devel/200802/msg00072.html | title = GnuTLS Considered Harmful | author = Howard Chu | date=February 2008}}
* {{cite web | url = http://www.openldap.org/lists/openldap-devel/200802/msg00072.html | title = GnuTLS Considered Harmful | author = Howard Chu | date=February 2008}}
* {{cite web | url = https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2014-03/msg00086.html | title = mdoc considered harmful | author = [[Eric S. Raymond]] | date=March 7, 2014 | accessdate=October 4, 2020 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190918180405/https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2014-03/msg00086.html | archive-date = 2020-10-03 | url-status = live}}
* {{cite web | url = https://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/x86_harmful.pdf | title = Intel x86 considered harmful | author = Joanna Rutkowska | date=October 2015}}
* {{cite web | url = https://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/x86_harmful.pdf | title = Intel x86 considered harmful | author = Joanna Rutkowska | date=October 2015}}
* {{cite web | url = https://drewdevault.com/2016/11/24/Electron-considered-harmful.html | title = Electron considered Harmful | author = Drew DeVault | date=November 2016}}
* {{cite web | url = https://drewdevault.com/2016/11/24/Electron-considered-harmful.html | title = Electron considered Harmful | author = Drew DeVault | date=November 2016}}

Revision as of 23:19, 4 October 2020

"Achievements considered harmful?" presentation at the 2010 Game Developers Conference

Considered harmful is a part of a phrasal template "X considered harmful". As of 2009, its snowclones have been used in the titles of at least 65 critical essays in computer science and related disciplines.[1] Its use in this context originated in 1968 with Edsger Dijkstra's letter "Go To Statement Considered Harmful".

History

Considered harmful was already a journalistic cliché used in headlines, well before the Dijkstra article, as in, for example, the headline over a letter published in 1949 in The New York Times: "Rent Control Controversy / Enacting Now of Hasty Legislation Considered Harmful".[2]

Considered harmful was popularized among computer scientists by Edsger Dijkstra's letter "Go To Statement Considered Harmful",[3][4] 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.[5] 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 "Go To Statement Considered Harmful".[6] Regarding this new title, Donald Knuth quipped that "Dr. Goto cheerfully complained that he was always being eliminated."[7]

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".[8] The May 1987 CACM printed further replies, both for and against, under the title "'"GOTO Considered Harmful" Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful?".[9] Dijkstra's own response to this controversy was titled On a Somewhat Disappointing Correspondence.[10]

Snowclones

References

  1. ^ "Miscellaneous - Considered Harmful". Archived from the original on May 3, 2009. Retrieved August 17, 2009.
  2. ^ Mark Liberman (April 8, 2008). "Language Log: Considered harmful". Retrieved August 17, 2009.
  3. ^ Edsger Dijkstra (March 1968). "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" (PDF). Communications of the ACM. 11 (3): 147–148. doi:10.1145/362929.362947. The unbridled use of the go to statement has as an immediate consequence that it becomes terribly hard to find a meaningful set of coordinates in which to describe the process progress. ... The go to statement as it stands is just too primitive, it is too much an invitation to make a mess of one's program.
  4. ^ Dijkstra, Edsger W. EWD-215 (PDF). E.W. Dijkstra Archive. Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. (transcription)
  5. ^ David R. Tribble (February 2005). "Go To Statement Considered Harmful: A Retrospective".
  6. ^ Dijkstra, Edsger W. What led to "Notes on Structured Programming" (EWD-1308) (PDF). E.W. Dijkstra Archive. Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. (transcription) (June, 2001)
  7. ^ Kanada, Yasumasa (2005), "Events and Sightings: An obituary of Eiichi Goto", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 27 (3): 92, doi:10.1109/MAHC.2005.37
  8. ^ Frank Rubin (March 1987). ""GOTO Considered Harmful" Considered Harmful" (PDF). Communications of the ACM. 30 (3): 195–196. doi:10.1145/214748.315722. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 20, 2009.
  9. ^ Donald Moore; Chuck Musciano; Michael J. Liebhaber; Steven F. Lott; Lee Starr (May 1987). "" 'GOTO Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful" Considered Harmful?" (PDF). Communications of the ACM. 30 (5): 351–355. doi:10.1145/22899.315729.
  10. ^ Dijkstra, Edsger W. On a Somewhat Disappointing Correspondence (EWD-1009) (PDF). E.W. Dijkstra Archive. Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. (transcription) (May, 1987)