Abstract :
There is no doubt about it, structured programming (SP) is making waves. Wherever one goes within the computing community people are asking what it is and how they can use it. And the answers they are receiving are sometimes very different. This inability to pin down a precise definition has caused the original concept of SP to become widely distorted. For example, a recent advertisement described SP as "a means of improving the quality of the code, improving project control, reducing the debugging phase of the project, forcing good software documentation as an integral part of the system design, and making programs less sensitive to turnover of project personnel."<R>1</R> Thus portrayed as a panacea for the entire programming process, it is not surprising that in a recent week-long seminar given by Dr. Dijkstra, he refused to use the term at all.
