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gogotocoroutinegoroutine

Differences between Coroutines and `goto`?

I always read about the horrible thing that "goto" is. But today, reading about the Google programming language Go, I see that it suports Coroutines (Goroutines).

The question is:

Coroutine == GoTo

Or

Coroutine != GoTo?

Why?

Solution

  • Goroutines are not the same as a goto - they run in parallel with the main code. When you state something like (from their example at http://golang.org/doc/effective_go.html)

    go list.Sort();  // run list.Sort in parallel; don't wait for it.

    the mainline code continues on - it doesn't wait for the sort to finish. The sort routine starts up on its own lightweight thread of execution and when it finishes the sort that thread exits.

    A goto would cause the mainline code to branch to a separate execution path - so the statements after the goto would never get run.