[TUHS] To NDEBUG or not to NDEBUG, that is the question

[Larry McVoy via TUHS]

In my retirement, I've discovered fishing on the ocean.  And I've built
up a little group of hand selected friends.  One attribute we all share
is PFD is always on.  It goes off as things warm up and we shed our 
foul weather gear, but it goes right back on.  I've hosted some people
who don't share that idea, but only hosted them once.

On Fri, Oct 17, 2025 at 07:58:07AM -0400, Clem Cole via TUHS wrote:
> Going >>without<< a PFD ??? dyslexia-R-me
> 
> Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
> 
> 
> On Fri, Oct 17, 2025 at 7:56???AM Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> > FWIW:  assertions are like a PFD (a.k.a. Personal floation device or life
> > preserver).  Going with a PFD is never a good idea, particularly if you are
> > in open waters, as you never know when you could accidentally get washed
> > overboard.
> >
> > Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 17, 2025 at 7:42???AM Aharon Robbins via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Hello All.
> >>
> >> A bit off-topic, perhaps, but thoughts from this crowd would be welcome.
> >>
> >> I just finished tracking down a bug in gawk that was only noticed
> >> because the Windows port is built without -DNEBUG, causing assertions
> >> (via assert(3)) to be included in the code.  The regular *nix build
> >> defines NDEBUG, so that assertions are not included in the regular,
> >> "production" build.
> >>
> >> Now, I can understand why assert() and NDEBUG work the way they do.
> >> Particularly on the small PDP-11s on which C and Unix were developed,
> >> it made sense to have a way to remove assertions from code that would
> >> be installed for all users.
> >>
> >> However, I'm starting to wonder.  Are my habits from yesteryear (defining
> >> NDEBUG by default) getting in the way of my being able (or users being
> >> able) to find bugs and report them?  Should I remove the defining of
> >> NDEBUG from the default build?  In particular, given the many orders of
> >> magnitude increase in CPU and memory of modern systems, is it likely
> >> that assertions won't really affect performance all that much?
> >>
> >> I'm starting to think that the answer is yes, it's time to remove
> >> NDEBUG.  But I'm curious what the experienced developers here
> >> might think.
> >>
> >> Much thanks,
> >>
> >> Arnold
> >>
> >

-- 
---
Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat