assert semantic change proposal

[Daniel Gibson via Digitalmars-d]

Am 04.08.2014 00:15, schrieb Andrei Alexandrescu:
>
> That said, should we proceed carefully about realizing this advantage?
> Of course; that's a given. But I think it's very important to fully
> understand the advantages of gaining an edge over the competition.
>

Gaining an edge over the competition?

"A new DMD release broke my code in a totally unexpected way and people 
tell me it's because I'm using assert() wrong.
I've been using it like this in C/C++/Java/Python and D since forever 
and *now*, after >10years, they changed D's meaning of assert() to 
somehow imply assume() and optimize my safety-checks away.. they pretend 
it was always planned like this but they never got around to tell anyone 
until recently.
It took me a week to find this freaking bug!"

Doesn't really sound like the kind of advantage over the competition 
that many people would appreciate.

If some rant like this (from Reddit or whatever) is the first impression 
someone gets of D, he's unlikely to ever take a closer look, regardless 
of the many merits the language actually has.

(Yes, Johhannes Pfau actually brought a similar  argument somewhere in 
the depth of one of the other threads)

D could still get this kind of edge over the competition by doing these 
kind of optimizations when another keyword (like assume()) is used - 
without breaking any code.

Cheers,
Daniel