Structured programming is a programming paradigm aimed on improving the clarity, quality, and development time of a computer program by making extensive use of subroutines, block structures and for and while loops – in contrast to using simple tests and jumps such as the goto statement which could lead to "spaghetti code" which is both difficult to follow and to maintain.
It emerged in the 1960s, particularly from work by Böhm and Jacopini, and a famous letter, Go To Statement Considered Harmful, from Edsger Dijkstra in 1968—and was bolstered theoretically by the structured program theorem, and practically by the emergence of languages such as ALGOL with suitably rich control structures.
Read more about Structured Programming: Low-level Structure Programming, Structured Programming Languages
Famous quotes containing the words structured and/or programming:
“Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the drivers seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)