Assessing the Relationship between Software Assertions and Code Quality: An Empirical InvestigationGunnar Kudrjavets 1, Nachiappan Nagappan 2, Thomas Ball 2 1 Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA 980522Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA 98052 {gunnarku, nachin, tball} @microsoft.comAbstractThe use of assertions in software development is thought to help produce quality software.Unfortunately, there is scant empirical evidence in commercial software systems for t