3 ms·

Even a purely software construct, it's evil. If you flexibly receive, then popularly wrong data becomes the new standard.

by Taywee 4y ago

asveikau 4y ago
I feel like you are making an assumption that your flexible implementation, or a single "wrong" implementation, becomes dominant. If there are many implementations with differing amounts of perceived flexibility or wrongness in different areas, the average is going to be OK. If misunderstanding a spec is so common that many implementers are universally confused and "wrong" in the same way, maybe it's the spec that was wrong, and the misinterpretation should have been the spec. Ps. Phrasing this as "evil" contrasting with good reads to me as paranoid and melodramatic.
- Taywee 4y ago
  I agree with "evil" being melodromatic of a term. I was just using it for consistency. Bad behavior being eventually codified into a standard because implementations were lax and it's impossible to go back on what everybody is now already doing is the story behind much of the modern web as it exists. HTML requiring closing tags for some elements, requiring a lack of closing tags for others, and leaving the closing tag still optional for yet others is a side effect of common browser behaviors. You're right that many implementations with different wrongness smooths out the average in many cases, except when all those implementations are expected to behave the same way on the same bad data. Then they all converge to the same bad behavior, which then becomes the new standard. Perhaps that's organic and natural, but I still wish we had a world where HTML was strictly compatible with XML, or with any other structured and predictable format.
- speed_spread 4y ago
  Unfortunately the flexible implementation has a better chance at becoming dominant as it will work in more cases hence user are more likely to adopt it. Users don't care about standards compliance in the short term (if ever), they just want a solution to their use case, which is understandable. Same reason Microsoft worked so hard to keep deviant apps running on newer versions of Windows, there's a quality to "it just keeps working no matter what I do".
- layer8 4y ago
  The problem is that those implementations that do end up being dominant then factually constitute an ill-defined unwritten standard. There are just too many examples of this. So it’s good advice to not start being lenient, because you never know what ends up being dominant. As a sibling comment points out, being lenient in fact increases your chances of becoming dominant.
HPsquared 4y ago
Evil, but strong. The two often go together.

Even a purely software construct, it's evil. If you flexibly receive, then popularly wrong data becomes the new standard.

by Taywee 4y ago

Even a purely software construct, it's evil. If you flexibly receive, then popularly wrong data becomes the new standard.

asveikau 4y ago

I feel like you are making an assumption that your flexible implementation, or a single "wrong" implementation, becomes dominant. If there are many implementations with differing amounts of perceived flexibility or wrongness in different areas, the average is going to be OK. If misunderstanding a spec is so common that many implementers are universally confused and "wrong" in the same way, maybe it's the spec that was wrong, and the misinterpretation should have been the spec. Ps. Phrasing this as "evil" contrasting with good reads to me as paranoid and melodramatic.

Taywee 4y ago
I agree with "evil" being melodromatic of a term. I was just using it for consistency. Bad behavior being eventually codified into a standard because implementations were lax and it's impossible to go back on what everybody is now already doing is the story behind much of the modern web as it exists. HTML requiring closing tags for some elements, requiring a lack of closing tags for others, and leaving the closing tag still optional for yet others is a side effect of common browser behaviors. You're right that many implementations with different wrongness smooths out the average in many cases, except when all those implementations are expected to behave the same way on the same bad data. Then they all converge to the same bad behavior, which then becomes the new standard. Perhaps that's organic and natural, but I still wish we had a world where HTML was strictly compatible with XML, or with any other structured and predictable format.
speed_spread 4y ago
Unfortunately the flexible implementation has a better chance at becoming dominant as it will work in more cases hence user are more likely to adopt it. Users don't care about standards compliance in the short term (if ever), they just want a solution to their use case, which is understandable. Same reason Microsoft worked so hard to keep deviant apps running on newer versions of Windows, there's a quality to "it just keeps working no matter what I do".
layer8 4y ago
The problem is that those implementations that do end up being dominant then factually constitute an ill-defined unwritten standard. There are just too many examples of this. So it’s good advice to not start being lenient, because you never know what ends up being dominant. As a sibling comment points out, being lenient in fact increases your chances of becoming dominant.

HPsquared 4y ago

Evil, but strong. The two often go together.