c++ Is assert evil?

The Go language creators write^*:

Go doesn't provide assertions. They are undeniably convenient, but our experience has been that programmers use them as a crutch to avoid thinking about proper error handling and reporting. Proper error handling means that servers continue operation after non-fatal errors instead of crashing. Proper error reporting means that errors are direct and to the point, saving the programmer from interpreting a large crash trace. Precise errors are particularly important when the programmer seeing the errors is not familiar with the code.

Surely they're being faggots, right?

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^* http://golang.org/doc/go_faq.html

>>25
It doesn't have anything that's considered harmful:
no gotos, no asserts, NO EXCEPTIONS, no templates, no generics, no macros, no Lisp macros (yes, they really think they are harmful), no metaprogramming support, no continuations, ....