[Python-ideas] Repurpose `assert' into a general-purpose check

[Sylvain MARIE]

> I haven't yet seen any justification for syntax here. The nearest I've seen is that this "ensure" action is more like:
>
> try:
>     cond = x >= 0
> except BaseException:
>     raise AssertionError("x must be positive")
> else:
>     if not cond:
>         raise AssertionError("x must be positive")
>
> Which, IMO, is a bad idea, and I'm not sure anyone was actually advocating it anyway.
> 
> ChrisA

Indeed, I was the one advocating for it :) 

Based on all the feedback I received from this discussion, I realized that my implementation was completely flawed by the fact that I had done the class and functions decorators first, and wanted to apply the same pattern to the inline validator, resulting in this assert_valid with overkill delayed evaluation. Resulting in me saying that the only way out would be a new python language element.

I tried my best to update valid8 and reached a new stable point with version 3.0.0, providing 2 main utilities for inline validation:
 - the simple but not so powerful `quick_valid` function 
 - the more verbose (2 lines) but much more generic `wrap_valid` context manager (that's the best I can do today !)

The more capable but delayed-evaluation based `assert_valid` is not recommended anymore, or just a tool to replicate what is done in the function and class validation decorators. Like the decorators, it adds the ability to blend two styles of base functions (boolean testers and failure raisers) with boolean operators seamlessly. But the complexity is not worth it for inline validation (it seems to be worth it for decorators).

See https://smarie.github.io/python-valid8 for the new updated documentation. I also updated the problem description page at https://smarie.github.io/python-valid8/why_validation/ so as to keep a reference of the problem description and "wishlist" (whether it is implemented by this library or by new language elements in the future). Do not hesitate to contribute or send me your edits (off-list).

I would love to get feedback from anyone concerning this library, whether you consider it's useless or "interesting but...". We should probably take this offline though, so as not to pollute the initial thread.

Thanks again, a great weekend to all (end of the day here in france ;) )
Kind regards

Sylvain