Thomas E. Kurtz, a Creator of BASIC Computer Language, Dies at 96

[Otto_Harper]

12. Actually, infinite loops are OK

As long as you apply them correctly. In my pre-BASIC days, I can recall writing a program that used an infinite loop to do housekeeping until an outside interrupt occurred. The interrupt would cause it to GOTO another piece of code, to service the interruption.

The interrupt was signalled by a variable suddenly changing value within the loop, due to actions from the OS. The problem with that code arose when folks started using the new IBM optimizing compiler. The compiler saw that there was nothing inside the loop that changed the variable, and so moved the test to outside of the loop to improve efficiency. Result was a complete loss of control into an infinite loop. On a mainframe. Which cost real money for processor time.