RELEASE LiveCode 6.6 DP1

[Richard Gaskin]

Mark Wieder wrote:

 >> To bring this new feature to completion I just added a request for a
 >> global property to turn it off:
 >>
 >> AllowAssert global property
 >> <http://quality.runrev.com/show_bug.cgi?id=11833>
 >
 > Comment added to bug report.
 >
 > Richard: if you don't explicitly put in an assertError handler then
 > you get the effect you're looking for: asserts are essentially
 > ignored. There's a slight (and probably mostly not noticeable)
 > performance hit on the assert command evaluating the expression,
 > but that's it.

Likewise, my comment added there (though going forward I probably won't 
be cross-posting here):

What may be "slight" can't be known with any certainty, since they may 
invoke complex functions or other calls that may be noticeable by 
themselves, or checking things in frequently-called routines.

But we do know that asserts are valuable to the degree that they're 
used, and without a way to have them ignored the degree of use is the 
degree of performance impairment.

Given how many languages that support assert statements also provide a 
means of globally ignoring them, I think this is a reasonable request 
even if the performance impairment were merely measurable.

Indeed, I'd be surprised if many developers accustomed to using assert 
in other languages don't expect to see such a global flag.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
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