Should we add a *strict* (or *debug*) mode that runs `Plotly.validate` on every `newPlot` and `update` call before attempting to draw?

which would essentially be a more general way to resolve https://github.com/plotly/plotly.js/pull/1736

I’m thinking this strict/debug mode would be set as a config argument. We could either log the attribute errors (as Plotly.validate currently does) or throw an error.

[etpinard]

Is there a sense of what type of performance hit this would involve?

At the moment, Plotly.validate is fairly fast. It clocks in at no worse than 50ms. Plotly.validate’s execution time, in its current state, scales with the number of "data" and "layout" attributes set.

That said, if we choose to implement https://github.com/plotly/plotly.js/issues/1998, Plotly.validate will likely slow down a little bit. It we only check for data arrays lengths, the performance hit will be small. But if we choose to check for invalid data items (e.g. null in scatter marker traces), this will make Plotly.validate’s execution time scale with the length of the data array - which will slow it down considerably for graphs with many data points.

[etpinard]

cc @phxnsharp if you weren’t aware of this.