Ian Kelly <ian.g.ke...@gmail.com>: > Although to be honest I'd rather use something like "raise > RuntimeError('Unreachable code reached')" than "assert False" here. If > the expectation is that the code will never be executed, then there's > no reason to ever optimize it out.
Asserts have nothing to do with them being optimized out. Asserts are communication. Apart from idiomatic style, there is no difference between # never reached assert False raise RuntimeError('Unreachable code reached') 1 / 0 print("Hello world") since, after all, that line is never reached! Out of these variants, I find assert False to be the most tasteful. It is concise, to the point and provided by the core language. If it didn't exist, I'd have to resort to one of the other alternatives. Marko -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list