Clarity vs. code reuse/generality

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:27:25 -0400, Charles Yeomans wrote:

>> (3) assert is absolutely unsuitable for enforcing pre-conditions and
>> post-
>> conditions, unless such conditions are mere "guidelines", because
>> assert
>> can be switched off at runtime.
> 
> 
> Unless, of course, you want to switch off such checking at runtime, as
> you might when using a design-by-contract approach.

So is design-by-contract just another way of saying "let's hope the data 
is valid, because if it's not, we're screwed"?

Perhaps Python should have a new statement, `assume`, used just like 
`assert` except it never actually performs the test or raises an error.


-- 
Steven