Asserts and side effects

[Lars T. Kyllingstad]

The following is a quote from a comment in the Reddit post about asserts 
that Walter just linked to:

     "Asserts are not without pitfalls, though. If you aren't careful,
      what to put in the asserts, the program could behave differently"

A trivial example of this is:

     int i;
     write(i);
     assert (++i == 1);
     write(i);

Normally, this program prints "01", but in release mode it prints "00". 
Asserts should never change the behaviour of a program, but currently it 
is up to the programmer to verify that this is in fact the case.

Would it be possible (and desirable) for the D compiler to statically 
check that asserts have no side effects?

-Lars