Re: Assertions and Such

[Lauris Kaplinski <lauris helixcode com>]

On Mon, 21 Aug 2000, Sean Middleditch wrote:

> > > And, if these were disabled by default, then any distributed application
> > > would have to be guaranteed to not fail such assertions, since the app
> > > would crash a lot.  Would developers then make more effort to ensure
> > > their apps are error-free?
> >
> > Don't know. People are supposed to consider the warnings bugs. Some
> > people apparently do not. ;-)
> 
> Ya.  Like I said, if a piece of my code has so much as one warning, I won't
> release it till the warning is squashed and gone...  Maybe everyone just
> isn't as picky as I am.

Yeah. Unfortunately we are living in real world, where you sometimes just
need working solution now, not in some unknown future date.

If you are writing application, you are free not to release it to general
public before it is 'warning clear' - although it is often good idea to do
it. We are not killing warnings just for the sake of killing - warnings
are often notices, that there are bits of code needing rework - and the
rework can be costly.
If you are writing library you often want to thow it out in half-finished
state:
1. To encourage people using your API
2. To find more real-world test situations
In every case the decision is of developer to do - whether users will be
happier using buggy software than not using it at all. The problem is, of
course, that many open-source projects will never be finished - because at
the moment they are bug-free enough to disable warnings, they are already
seriously outdated and main development team is strongly encouraging fresh
buggy version.

Lauris