title: Is there ever a good reason to use eval()?
body: <p>It seems to me that <code>eval()</code> is treated with the same disdain that goto is. And by <code>eval</code>, I mean a function for executing a string as code, as seen in PHP, Python, JavaScript, etc. Is there ever a situation where using <code>eval()</code> is justified (except perl)? And if not, why do so many languages implement it?</p>