I dislike asserts intensely. I would not go as far as saying they are evil though.
Basically an assert will do the same thing as an unchecked exception would, the only exception is that the assert (normally) should not be kept for the final product.
If you build a safety net for yourself while debugging and building the system why would you deny this safety net for your customer, or your support help desk, or anyone that will get to use the software that you are currently building. Use exceptions exclusively for both asserts and exceptional situations. By creating an appropriate exception hierarchy you will be able to discern very quickly one from the other. Except this time the assert remains in place and can provide valuable information in case of failure that would otherwise be lost.
So I fully understand the creators of Go by removing asserts altogether and forcing programmers to use exceptions to handle the situation. There is a simple explanation for this, exception are just a better mechanism for the job why stick with the archaic asserts?
