Assertions of Competence
summary
Asserts are argued to be for declaring invariants and catching things that should never happen not for user-facing error handling, with the concrete point that asserts can disappear in release builds and so must not be relied on for recovery. Practical details include default OS behaviors (Unix core dump Windows dialog), server problems with headless boxes, options to redirect assert output to files, and the recommendation to use unit tests and other checks alongside asserts.
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