We have a lot of runtime checks(asserts) and verification code in Hotspot which is guarded by #ifdef ASSERT and sometimes #ifndef PRODUCT. Some corresponding flags are defined as 'develop' and some as 'nonproduct'. Which is confusing.
We should use build variable INCLUDE_ASSERT in such cases to guard all Hotspot verification code which executed in runtime.

Note, Hotspot has some functionality which is used only in debugger. They can be guarded by #ifdef DEBUG:

http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk/jdk/file/29b94ed63a09/src/hotspot/share/utilities/debug.cpp#l330