I see Hyrum's Law as the highlighting a problem with the robustness principle. You start with: We followed the robustness principle, which is be conserva

I see Hyrum's Law as the highlighting a problem with the robustness principle. You start with: We followed the robustness principle, which is be conservative in what you do and be liberal in what you accept from others But then, the 'things you accept' become part of your api: The problem with the robustness principle is a flaw can become entrenched as the defacto standard. Any implementation of a protocol is required to replicate the apparent behavior. This is both a consequence of applying the robustness principle and a product of a natural reluctance to avoid fatal error conditions. And you arrive at: With a sufficient number of users of an API, it doesn’t matter what you promise. Any observable behavior of your system will be dependent upon by somebody I have a long rant about this, and how web browser standards fell victim to this. It's why user agent string look like they do and why 'chucknorris' is an HTML color. https://corecursive.com/internet-is-duct-tape/ https://corecursive.com/internet-is-duct-tape/