On Sunday, 9 September 2018 at 09:01:28 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad
wrote:
Let's face it, the term "assert" has been poisoned by decades
of ambiguity.
There is really no ambiguity... The terminology is widespread
and well understood across the field I think.
Ahh, I so, so wish what you said was true. The endless debates in
this forum, and many other forums across the 'net and sadly, in
my own workplace, have firmly convinced me...
* The terminology is indeed widespread.
* and well understood across the field
* to mean subtly different and incompatible things to different
groups of people.
ie. Yes, everybody knows the words, everybody can read the code,
everybody can find somebody who agrees with his intent and
meaning.... but get a large enough group together to try agree on
what actions, for example, the optimiser should take that are
implied by that meaning... and flames erupt.
Suddenly you find people don't actually agree on the intent and
meaning of the code.
Communication is hard, human communication is doubly hard.
I beg humanity to give up on that word "assert" and come up with
others words and define explicit the intent and meaning and
implications.
So much pain will be avoided.
