Surely the developers have implemented rules or an overlay of some type to prevent undesirable behavior, separately from the underlying engine that produces tex

Surely the developers have implemented rules or an overlay of some type to prevent undesirable behavior, separately from the underlying engine that produces text? I would think it's unjustified anthropomorphizing to treat it as an integrated whole. Although it does resemble some people I've talked to. Those people give me cult programming vibes though.