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While I agree that some kinds of validation are 'too eager' and annoying, just use a 'legit' e-mail address, ffs. By including super-special characters and wha
by soulclap 16y ago
While I agree that some kinds of validation are 'too eager' and annoying, just use a 'legit' e-mail address, ffs.
By including super-special characters and whatever extra features GMail or whoever provides, you're just asking for it, sorry.
Especially if you're a coder yourself, you can already assume that even if it passes the initial validation, it probably won't be properly stored or escaped when the actual mail is sent, when you try to log in with your address later, etc.
- EliRivers 16y agoThe relevant RFCs make it clear what is a correct eMail address. Why should we have to put with lazy or incompetent coders who can't be bothered to meet the standard?
- retube 16y agoYeah but not all email addresses are RFC compliant. Plenty of mail servers accept, or can be configured to accept, non-compliant addresses.
- frobozz 16y agoThat's not the issue at hand - the grandparent comment advocates that you shouldn't even expect a service to accept RFC-Compliant addresses. Validating against the RFC is more, not less permissive than the position held by the grandparent comment.
- soulclap 16y agoYou probably got me wrong. In a perfect world, it would work just as specified in the RFC, everywhere and I am all for that. But obviously that's not the case. And I am not encouraging people to be lazy and sloppy, I am just saying considering the 'real world', you are better off with an email-address that does not contain any too unusual characters (e.g. - _ . should be fine, as those are commonly used).
- tomjen3 16y agoBecause those RFCs are insane. Seriously comments (nested even) in email addresses?
- frobozz 16y agoHow can other people work out what you mean by a 'legit' email address? Are hyphens allowed? What about dots, underscores or numbers? Do any of those count as "super-special characters"? Just like "+", they are all permitted in standards-compliant email addresses, but I have no way of knowing whether they are permitted in addresses that you consider "legit".
- soulclap 16y agoExactly. You have no way of knowing what all the code along the way between the mail-sending application and your inbox does, that was my whole point.
- frobozz 16y agoBut how can I be considered to be "asking for it" if I put a dot, hyphen or number in my email address, when millions of email addresses have them; the standard permits them; and many institutional policies create emails with them by default? Which characters can I have in my email address, that won't cause you to tell me it's my own fault when they get rejected? I agree that you have no way of knowing what all the code along the way does, but you can at least hope that it behaves in something resembling a standards-compliant fashion. Otherwise, what's the point of email addresses at all?
- soulclap 16y agoI am not sure whether relying on 'hope' is a good approach.
- frobozz 16y agoHope is all you have, if email is the black box wilderness you describe. You rely on hope regardless of whether or not your email address contains "super-special characters". My whole point is that there is a standard for an email address, outlined in a freely-available document. If an application claims to handle email, that claim implies conformance to that standard. Any deviation should be documented. Your claim appears to be that there is some other definition of a "legit" email address, that you can absolutely 100% guarantee will be handled by absolutely every single email-handling application ever (without relying on hope). Please answer these questions - 1) What, exactly, is the format of such a "legit" email address, according to your definition? 2) Where does this definition come from?