>IMHO, it does not matter which approach to take in your particular case because you already know why the calendar failed to initialize. ASSERT is very handy when you are not sure what caused the problem because it allows you to enter the debugger to view variable, properties, parameters, call stack, etc...

I always ASSERT myself when a certain table isn't open or enoguh parameters weren't passed. I don't need to suspend in that case, just get teh message to me conditionaly and easily.