Should assert be a statement?

Question

I've been waiting for the `assert statement' for a long time,
and now that it's here I found a problem that I had hoped
had been avoided...
The problem is that `assert' is a statement, so it cannot
be used to check preconditions on constructors before
`super' is called...
I haven't been part of any discussion around the language,
so I asked myself if anybody remembers if this topic was
ever discussed...
Thanks,
Job Honig

Answer 1

You shouldn't use asserts to check preconditions. The
reason is that preconditions are part of the contract
of a class, and that contract should always be
enforced, not just in debug mode.
You can read more about this important point here:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/lang/assert.htm
#usage-conditionsYes, I know of this guideline, but I disagree. Instead I agree
with the articles on assertions written by Wm. Paul Rogers:
assertions are way too important to use them for debugging
only, and should be used for all argument checking, not only
for non-public methods.
Actually, the question I posed is a problem too when using
regular exceptions. I think this would even be an additional
reason to use assertions, and make an assertion a separate
construct that may precede a call to super!
Job Honig