您应该始终使用第二种方法(抛出异常)。

同样，如果你是在生产环境中(并且有一个发布版本)，抛出一个异常(在最坏的情况下让应用程序崩溃)比处理无效值和可能破坏客户数据(这可能要花费数千美元)要好。

仅在希望为发布版本删除检查的情况下使用断言。请记住，如果不在调试模式下编译，断言将不会触发。

对于检查为空的示例，如果这是在仅限内部的API中，我可能会使用断言。如果它在一个公共API中，我肯定会使用显式检查和抛出。

将Debug.Assert()放在代码中任何需要进行完整性检查以确保不变量的地方。当编译Release版本时(即没有DEBUG编译器常量)，对DEBUG . assert()的调用将被删除，因此它们不会影响性能。

在调用Debug.Assert()之前仍然应该抛出异常。断言只是确保在开发过程中一切都如预期的那样。

在我的书里几乎从来没有。 在绝大多数情况下，如果你想检查一切是否正常，那么就扔掉。

我不喜欢的是，它使调试构建在功能上与发布构建不同。如果调试断言失败，但功能在发布中工作，那么这有什么意义呢?如果断言者早已离开公司，没有人知道这部分代码，那就更好了。然后你就得花点时间去探索这个问题，看看它是不是真的是个问题。如果这是一个问题，那为什么那个人不第一时间扔呢?

对我来说，这建议使用调试。声称你把问题推给别人，自己解决问题。如果某件事应该是这样，但事实并非如此，那就扔掉。

我猜可能有一些性能关键的场景，你想要优化你的断言，它们在那里很有用，但是我还没有遇到这样的场景。

就其价值而言……我发现我的公共方法倾向于使用if () {throw;}模式，以确保方法被正确调用。我的私有方法倾向于使用Debug.Assert()。

The idea is that with my private methods, I'm the one under control, so if I start calling one of my own private methods with parameters that are incorrect, then I've broken my own assumption somewhere--I should have never gotten into that state. In production, these private asserts should ideally be unnecessary work since I am supposed to be keeping my internal state valid and consistent. Contrast with parameters given to public methods, which could be called by anyone at runtime: I still need to enforce parameter constraints there by throwing exceptions.

此外，如果某些东西在运行时不起作用(网络错误、数据访问错误、从第三方服务检索的坏数据等)，我的私有方法仍然可以抛出异常。我的断言只是为了确保我没有破坏我自己关于对象状态的内部假设。

摘自Code Complete (Wikipedia):

8 Defensive Programming 8.2 Assertions An assertion is code that’s used during development—usually a routine or macro—that allows a program to check itself as it runs. When an assertion is true, that means everything is operating as expected. When it’s false, that means it has detected an unexpected error in the code. For example, if the system assumes that a customer-information file will never have more than 50,000 records, the program might contain an assertion that the number of records is lessthan or equal to 50,000. As long as the number of records is less than or equal to 50,000, the assertion will be silent. If it encounters more than 50,000 records, however, it will loudly “assert” that there is an error in the program. Assertions are especially useful in large, complicated programs and in high reliability programs. They enable programmers to more quickly flush out mismatched interface assumptions, errors that creep in when code is modified, and so on. An assertion usually takes two arguments: a boolean expression that describes the assumption that’s supposed to be true and a message to display if it isn’t. (…) Normally, you don’t want users to see assertion messages in production code; assertions are primarily for use during development and maintenance. Assertions are normally compiled into the code at development time and compiled out of the code for production. During development, assertions flush out contradictory assumptions, unexpected conditions, bad values passed to routines, and so on. During production, they are compiled out of the code so that the assertions don’t degrade system performance.