RELEASE LiveCode 6.6 DP1

[Richard Gaskin]

Björnke von Gierke wrote:

 > I still think that adding an assert command (of all things) is a
 > completely wrong way to do that tho. What i'd want is this to use
 > existing capabilities, instead of sidestepping how things work right
 > now. Maybe a control structure would be a lot more in touch with the
 > existing ways?

Perhaps "assert" is that control structure.

Your reaction to its inclusion in LS seems very natural, not at all 
irrational, and very much like my own at first.

But to try to understand why someone line Mark Waddingham would take the 
time out of an impacted schedule to add it, I spent some time of my own 
looking into how other languages make use of "assert".

I've come to see "assert" less as an error-handling mechanism than an 
uncommonly-efficient reporting mechansism,

As such, it would seem to offer unique value to the language.

That is, provided they add a global means of turning off "assert" 
evaluation.  Without such a global flag it's no better than just writing 
a custom handler, which is probably why most languages that support 
"assert" also provide such a global flag.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for Desktop, Mobile, and Web
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