[Python-Dev] the role of assert in the standard library ?

[Guido van Rossum]

On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 12:54 AM, Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek at gmail.com> wrote:
> In my opinion assert should be avoided completely anywhere else than
> in the tests. If this is a wrong statement, please let me know why :)

I would turn that around. The assert statement should not be used in
unit tests; unit tests should use self.assertXyzzy() always. In
regular code, assert should be about detecting buggy code. It should
not be used to test for error conditions in input data. (Both these
can be summarized as "if you still want the test to happen with -O,
don't use assert.)

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)