X considered harmful is one of computing's oldest memes, 44 years old this month, and was well sort of co-created by two of its foremost computer scientists. (Dijkstra and Wirth)
Yep, that's probably the worst thing about the meme. Because the original was so famous, all others piggy back on it, giving their own arguments some amount of weight.
(off-topic, but goto statements being harmful has been debunked several times over).
As memes go, it has a long history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Considered_harmful