[john_moscow]

Assert's run-time. This is compile-time (i.e. all instances are guaranteed to trigger during build). C++ equivalent would be a static_assert, but it has a totally different use case like this:

  static_assert(sizeof(StructUsedInSomeBinaryProtocol) == SomeConstantExpectedByTheOtherSide, "<...>")

[TeMPOraL]

We used to do static asserts with a preprocessor macro that typedefed an array with size expressed as: (your condition) ? 1 : -1. Point being, static asserts have the use case you want them to have; I see no reason to not have a TODO macro that expands to static_assert(false, "...").