Debug.Assert vs Exceptions

Question

Surprisingly I was only able to find one previous question on SO about this subject, and I\'d just like to get the community \"Vote of Confidence\" (or not!) on my approach.

Answer 1

Often both: Assert, then throw.

You assert because you want to notify developers of a mistaken assumption during development.

You throw because if this happens in a release build, you need to make sure the system doesn't continue processing while in a bad state.

The desired reliability characteristics of your system may affect your choice here, but 'assert then throw' is often a useful strategy, I think.