Walter Bright:
Thanks! I like pressing existing features into use over inventing new ones :-)
The existing feature to be used is @deprecated, it's more self-documenting and it was designed for that purpose. Using that special assert is just a workaround. No one was suggesting to invent new feature, but to add a string argument to the right feature to use.
Why not?
Because it's ugly, and ugly things usually later manage to find ways to give you troubles.
it's probably a good idea for new modules in Phobos to avoid collisions with old names, even when the old names are removed, so that people are not confused when they try to recompile old projects.
In few (not common) cases it's better to re-use an old name for different better purposes.
Bye, bearophile
