Slyde is build on the mentality of "let it crash". I will try to make Slyde crash when it reaches an invalid state, and mention where this mistake in the document was. I try to provide you with a path to the invalid node.
For example this obviously does not make sense:
<presentation title="outer presentation">
<presentation title="inner presentation" />
</presentation>
So, you'll receive an error along the lines of:
Error: Expected slides at ${path} but found presentation.
where path is the path to the inner presentation. These paths are based on xpath, a XML query language. This makes sure we are all on the same page, and might make creating IDE extensions easier later.
In case you do not get a path, that is a shame. Feel free to open an issue and I will look into it.