[comp.lang.eiffel] Question about assertions

johnson@p.cs.uiuc.edu (02/07/90)

I have some questions about assertions.  I have never used Eiffel,
though I've read the book.  Assertions are one of the nicer ideas
in the language.  My questions are centered around how people use
them and their run-time cost.

Clearly assertions have some run-time overhead.  Probably
many people turn them off once they get a program written
to eliminate the overhead.  Can this be done on a class-by-class
or a method-by-method basis?  Is it forbidden?  What are the
costs of assertions?  Perhaps they are not as expensive as
I think.

Ralph Johnson - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign