Re: [boost] Re: compile time asserts [preconditions]

From: Beman Dawes (beman_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-07-31 10:36:53

William Kempf wrote:

 > I strongly suggest you pick a different name.  Preconditions already
 > have a very well known meaning, for which a compile time assert does
 > not work.  Specifically, a precondition is one of the three
 > components that build up the foundation of DBC (design by contract):
 > precondition, postcondition and invariant.  All of these are runtime
 > assertions.  A precondition is that that must be upheld before a
 > function can be called (aka it's what you must insure when you call a
 > function).

A strong case for a different name.

Dave Abrahams wrote:

 >They're not completely unrelated: the compile-time assert is a very 
special
 >case of precondition, where the precondition can be checked by the
 >compiler.
 >That said, I think the name "precondition" suffers the same problem as 
many
 >of the other names that we've seen: namely, that it looks like just 
another
 >way to write "assert". I am getting tired of listening to myself nag 
y'all
 >about this, but I insist that the name needs to contain some indication
 >that
 >there is static checking going on:
 >
 >BOOST_COMPILER_ASSERT

That one still looks like yet-another assert.

 >BOOST_STATIC_PRECONDITION
 >BOOST_STATIC_ASSERT
 >BOOST_STATIC_CHECK
 >
 >all work, with BOOST_STATIC_ASSERT being my favorite so far.

I could live with any of those three.

--Beman