/* Rambling comments... */

Barry's take on Assert

Barry Lapthorn has a response to my Assert is Evil posting where he concludes that assertions aren't needed if you have tests... He also raises a point that I missed which is that the typical assert on Windows machines causes a dialog box to pop up and stop your program giving you the option of debugging it or ignoring the assert, etc. This kind of response is not especially useful if you're writing code that doesn't interact with a user, such as a service, as the code may not be able to show a dialog box ...

[Updated 3rd October]
See the following follow up postings:

• More from Mark and Barry on Assert


• Is Raymond Chen's use of assert valid?


• Asserts are evil, except when you have no other choice