Yes, which is why I really like the idea of proactive enforcement with random expected-to-be-ignored tags/parameters. I'm arguing against the idea that leaving

Yes, which is why I really like the idea of proactive enforcement with random expected-to-be-ignored tags/parameters. I'm arguing against the idea that leaving out the last part of this for (item = params->head; item; item = item->next) { switch (item->type) { case KNOWN_PARAM_TYPE_FOO: // do normal stuff break; /* ... etc ... */ IGNORE_KNOWN_PARAM_TYPE_BAR: // fallthrough - BAR explicitly uses default handling default: continue; // skip unknown parameters } } is evidence of incompetence, not a strategy that will "make more profit than your competitor". Also, as the BAR constant suggests, you probably already have code that skips unrelated fields. While the difference in programmer time is almost always trivially small, sometimes it might be zero.