std.xml validity checking is absurd

[Dicebot]

On Friday, 8 February 2013 at 11:25:07 UTC, monarch_dodra wrote:
> "in" and "out" contracts themselves are flawed in D in any 
> case, given they are part of the "called" code, as opposed to 
> "caller" code.
>
> This makes them absolutely no different than an assert.
>
> The problem is that an assert is "internal" validation, whereas 
> an "in"/"out" is supposed to be a handshake between the 
> caller/callee.

Isn't it exactly how contracts are supposed to work? They are 
neither error handling tools, nor handshake - more like tools to 
verify interconnections between different inner parts of program 
stay sane. For example, in web application you would like to 
escape user input only once, upon receiving it, and it makes 
sense to not waste cycles on verifying it is actually escaped 
down the code path. But adding a contract to make sure someone 
does not use that library function on a raw input by accident - 
makes perfect sense. Of course, contracts shine only if some 
debug-mode testing is in place during development process but 
right now they do behave in D exactly how I would have supposed.