Re: assert vs. std::logic_error?

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Sat, 24 Nov 2007 10:32:39 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID:
<2003e7c8-3615-4c0d-9dc1-9527a1a52979@i12g2000prf.googlegroups.com>
On Nov 24, 2:50 pm, rpbg...@yahoo.com (Roland Pibinger) wrote:

On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 09:31:14 +0100, "Alf P. Steinbach" wrote:

* Roland Pibinger:

asserts and tests are not related. Production code which is tested
contains no assets.


That's a good way to transform easily identifiable bugs into more
nebulous general "instability".


Any real-world example for programs that ships with asserts?


All of the routing software at Deutsche Telekom (and that's one
big network); Deutsche Telekom (and its spin-offs, like T Mobil)
require it. All of the network management programs from
Alcatel.

All of our trading software in the bank where I currently work.
(Funny thing about bankers: they prefer a crash to issuing a buy
order when they meant sell.)

Another argument against asserts in production code is
performance: asserts significantly slow down the program (if
they don't you haven't used enough asserts in your code).


That depends a lot on the program. All of the programs I've
worked on in the last 20 or so years have been I/O bound. And
asserts certainly don't slow up disk accesses.

BTW, asserts seem to be a C and C++ only thing. For my work I
mostly use Java and I have neither used nor missed asserts.
They are not necessary in that environment.


That's because Java can't be used in critical systems, when
reliability is important.

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James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james.kanze@gmail.com
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