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> * any other escape sequence MUST be interpreted as ? (question mark) character. Isn't it better to forbid them? Presumably you are saving the space for furt
by adrianratnapala 7y ago
> * any other escape sequence MUST be interpreted as ? (question mark) character.
Isn't it better to forbid them? Presumably you are saving the space for further extensions, but this is allowing readers to interpret them as '?'
Similarly what is the rationale for interpreting control characters is '?'? Instead you can ban them, with the possible exception of treating tabs as spaces.
- rumcajz 7y agoPostel's principle: By liberal in what you accept... It means that the tool won't crash just because there's weird input.
- wgoodall01 7y agoIsn't it better to crash than to fail silently, possibly storing malformed data?
- lioeters 7y agoKnown as "Fail early, fail loudly". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail-fast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail-fast
- adrianratnapala 7y agoBut as written, the definition permits generating the weird output. Which ignores the other arm of Postel's principle. You could have the format definition forbid these characters; and then in the section about Postel's principle have "If you choose to accept forbidden characters, you MUST treat them as '?'".