Python style: to check or not to check args and data members

[Joel Hedlund]

> You might try doctests, they can be easier to write and fit into the
> unit test framework if needed.

While I firmly believe in keeping docs up to date, I don't think that 
doctests alone can solve the problem of maintaining data integrity in 
projects with more comlex interfaces (which is what I really meant to 
talk about. Sorry if my simplified examples led you to believe 
otherwise). For simple, deterministic functions like math.pow I think 
it's great, but for something like BaseHTTPServer... probably not. The 
__doc__'s required would be truly fascinating to behold. And probably 
voluminous and mostly unreadable for humans. Or is there something that 
I've misunderstood?

/Joel