Should goog.DEBUG be false for builds distributed via npm?

[tatethurston]

goog.DEBUG is true in the google-protobuf.js runtime distributed in the npm package. This setting gates the various assertion code in the runtime (goog.asserts.ENABLE_ASSERTS = goog.DEBUG;).

1. Is this expected?
2. If so, should DEBUG be set to false for production builds? And should two builds be distributed, or a means be exposed to configure this?
3. If not, should the gulpfile that generates the runtime supply --define goog.DEBUG=false to the closure compiler invocation?

[dibenede]

Good question. Internally, we are use to people deliberately disabling debug mode when moving to production. It's unclear what the best approach is for public distribution.

[lukesandberg]

i think this is a case where we would need a new API

it would be reasonable to expect some customers to want to run with asserts and debug code disabled, but due to our releasing a bundled version of closure library this isn't possible.

consider angulars enableProdMode