checkedint call removal

[Paolo Invernizzi via Digitalmars-d]

On Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 20:04:32 UTC, Johannes Pfau wrote:
> Am Sat, 02 Aug 2014 12:19:41 -0700
> schrieb Walter Bright <newshound2 at digitalmars.com>:
>
>> On 8/2/2014 6:20 AM, Artur Skawina via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> > The bug was _introduced_ by the assert, the code was 100% 
>> > correct.
>> 
>> Asserts are part of the code, and writing incorrect asserts is
>> writing buggy code.
>> 
>
> And you still think that changing the behavior of assert is a 
> good
> idea? Even if assert was always meant to work like this, even 
> if the
> spec clearly defined it this will be a PR disaster. People 
> don't care
> what was in the spec, the only thing they know is the code 
> worked
> before, now it doesn't work anymore ==> blame it on the
> compiler/language.

I don't buy this!

JoeCoder: "Boss, I'm not able to run my code with without 
-release in development, because every few milliseconds an assert 
is triggered, but with that switch used to be very fast apart 
some crash and silly behaviour from time to time in production. 
But now I've upgraded the compiler and the bad boy working on the 
D language has ruined all my work!"

Boss:"Stick with the old compiler version, light more candles in 
the Charles Babbage Altar, and you are sacked!"

> Just envision the situation when somebody post on reddit 'My 
> code has
> been broken by this compiler release' then spents quite some
> time to track it down and complains about the assert changes? 
> Will you
> then reply 'You're code was broken anyway'?

This should be a big YES.

> What about Scott Meyers basically telling us that we should 
> make the
> language 'predictable' for the users? Doesn't the existence and 
> size of
> this discussion already prove that making assert work like 
> assume will
> be unexpected for many people? You even admitted that in other
> languages assert has a different meaning. You argued against 
> the name
> 'volatile' cause it has a different meaning in other languages. 
> How
> does this not apply to assert/assume? You might ask for Scotts 
> opinion
> about this case if you don't believe the people in this thread.

I understand the debate of introducing assume, and keep the two 
face of the medal split, but I think that there's nothing not 
predictable in the fact that, if an assert is there, everyone 
ranging from the optimiser to the colleague reading the sources 
is expecting that the expression must be true, without doubt. 
That's the predictable behaviour.

---
Paolo