8 ms·

"We are in a post-Postel world" is a great way to put it. This needs to be repeated by everyone working with file formats or accepting untrusted input.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nabla9 2y ago
Agreed. When every implementation in wide use has their own quirks, you must support them all to make your program widely used. Every special case is yet another potential bug to chase down. It also allows "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" -strategy that Microsoft used so successfully to assfuck the internet over a decade.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- pjmlp 2y ago
  I think you mean Google.
  - nabla9 2y ago
    No. The Microsoft. MS invented the term. DOJ found that MS used "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" in internal documents. Younger people don't know how absolutely ruthless and harmful Wintel monopoly was under Gates. Java did not work on purpose. Javascript did not work for purpose. <!--[if IE]> everywhere. They attempted to kill open web in the crib with their blackbird project. Only MSN (The Microsoft Network) for normal people.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Except it Google that morphed the Web into ChromeOS, with the help of EVERYONE that ships it alongside their applications, as they can't be bothered to learn cross-platform frameworks. Many of them people that used to complain about Micro$oft and should know better.
      - IshKebab 2y ago
        Anyone who was around for the IE6 era knows how much worse it was than the current Chrome era. It's not even close.
        pjmlp 2y ago
        Born in the 70's, coding since 1986.
        1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
        Started with DOS and became a Windows programmer. If it's OK to submit false statements, then why not add one more. https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-proposed-findings-fact https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-proposed-findings... See 91.3.2
        pjmlp 2y ago
        Yes I know how it was, and MS bullshit hate doesn't help, while worshiping how Google and Apple have taken over the Web and mobile devices.
      - nabla9 2y ago
        You clearly don't remember or know about how bad it was in IE6 era and before.
        pjmlp 2y ago
        Born in the 70's, coding since 1986
        anthk 2y ago
        Just two things: - Active X. - VB6, OLE, VBA macros and friends. Merge both. Now you have a propietary hell full of vulnerabilities. Said this, I don't like Google's world dominance on the smartphones/web/email/chat/maps/video platforms, neither. *Apple it's just sucessful in the US.
    - bigstrat2003 2y ago
      Agreed that it is a Microsoft term. But in my experience, it is older people who incorrectly judge Microsoft ruthlessness, not younger people. I am of an age where I remember well what Microsoft was like in those days, and it frankly was not as bad as people make it out to be. Nor was it really worse than the ruthless tech companies of today.
      - quesera 2y ago
        I was there too, and I disagree completely. Microsoft was not just ruthless, they were ubiquitous. They sabotaged any perceived competitors in anticompetitive, market- and industry-damaging ways. You (the generic "you") can complain all you want about Apple today, but you have another perfectly viable option. And Apple is (almost-entirely) happy to grow market share on merits without salting the earth of any rivals. In Microsoft's heyday, that was not true. Those of us who rejected MS back then did so at a much higher cost than green chat bubbles. It was worth it though. And we did win, eventually.
        chasil 2y ago
        Microsoft could not win, although they tried very hard. Windows was never going to scale down to the portable devices that we now use (because defeating Apple would have been very difficult, and AOSP made it insurmountable). Windows was never going to scale up to the top 500 supercomputer list (for largely economic reasons). Microsoft itself has tacitly admitted that Azure is better served by Linux, and we ponder why. Did the DoJ actions against Microsoft really have an impact? I don't know.
        specialist 2y ago
        > ...without salting the earth of any rivals. Microsoft embodied the adage "It's not enough to win. Everyone else must lose."
stackghost 2y ago
"Postel" is not a term that carries any significance for me, and Googling that word didn't turn anything up that seemed relevant. Who or what is a Postel?
- teraflop 2y ago
  It's a reference to "Postel's law" which is a pretty well-known principle in the networking world, and in software more broadly. Named after Jon Postel, who edited and published many of the RFCs describing core Internet protocols. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle
- Ndymium 2y ago
  It's a reference to Jon Postel who wrote the following in RFC 761[0]: TCP implementations should follow a general principle of robustness: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. Postel's Law is also known as the Robustness principle. [1] [0] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc761#section-2.10 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc761#section-2.10 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    Ironically it leads to less robust systems in the long term.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > Postel's Law is also known as the Robustness principle. Really? It seems like it's obviously just a description of how natural language works.† But in that case, there's an enforcement mechanism (not well understood) that causes everyone to be conservative in what they send. We can observe, by the natural language 'analogy', that the consequence of following this principle is that you never have backwards compatibility. Otherwise things generally work. † Notably, it has nothing to do with how math works, making it a strange choice for programming.
  - arcanemachiner 2y ago
cesarb 2y ago
> "We are in a post-Postel world" is a great way to put it. See also RFC 9413 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9413.html https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9413.html), originally called "draft-thomson-postel-was-wrong" (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-thomson-postel-was-wrong/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-thomson-postel-was-wr...).
Brian_K_White 2y ago
There is no such thing as a post Postel world. But handling the input in any other way than crashing or ub IS perfectly Postel. Deciding that nul is invalid data, and refusing to allow it, and refusing to munge the data and proceed based on the munged data that you essentially made up, as long as whatever you did do instead was graceful and intentional, to me that is perfectly Postel.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

nabla9 2y ago

Agreed. When every implementation in wide use has their own quirks, you must support them all to make your program widely used. Every special case is yet another potential bug to chase down. It also allows "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" -strategy that Microsoft used so successfully to assfuck the internet over a decade.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pjmlp 2y ago
I think you mean Google.
- nabla9 2y ago
  No. The Microsoft. MS invented the term. DOJ found that MS used "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" in internal documents. Younger people don't know how absolutely ruthless and harmful Wintel monopoly was under Gates. Java did not work on purpose. Javascript did not work for purpose. <!--[if IE]> everywhere. They attempted to kill open web in the crib with their blackbird project. Only MSN (The Microsoft Network) for normal people.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Except it Google that morphed the Web into ChromeOS, with the help of EVERYONE that ships it alongside their applications, as they can't be bothered to learn cross-platform frameworks. Many of them people that used to complain about Micro$oft and should know better.
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      Anyone who was around for the IE6 era knows how much worse it was than the current Chrome era. It's not even close.
      - pjmlp 2y ago
        Born in the 70's, coding since 1986.
        1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
        Started with DOS and became a Windows programmer. If it's OK to submit false statements, then why not add one more. https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-proposed-findings-fact https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-proposed-findings... See 91.3.2
        pjmlp 2y ago
        Yes I know how it was, and MS bullshit hate doesn't help, while worshiping how Google and Apple have taken over the Web and mobile devices.
    - nabla9 2y ago
      You clearly don't remember or know about how bad it was in IE6 era and before.
      - pjmlp 2y ago
        Born in the 70's, coding since 1986
        anthk 2y ago
        Just two things: - Active X. - VB6, OLE, VBA macros and friends. Merge both. Now you have a propietary hell full of vulnerabilities. Said this, I don't like Google's world dominance on the smartphones/web/email/chat/maps/video platforms, neither. *Apple it's just sucessful in the US.
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    Agreed that it is a Microsoft term. But in my experience, it is older people who incorrectly judge Microsoft ruthlessness, not younger people. I am of an age where I remember well what Microsoft was like in those days, and it frankly was not as bad as people make it out to be. Nor was it really worse than the ruthless tech companies of today.
    - quesera 2y ago
      I was there too, and I disagree completely. Microsoft was not just ruthless, they were ubiquitous. They sabotaged any perceived competitors in anticompetitive, market- and industry-damaging ways. You (the generic "you") can complain all you want about Apple today, but you have another perfectly viable option. And Apple is (almost-entirely) happy to grow market share on merits without salting the earth of any rivals. In Microsoft's heyday, that was not true. Those of us who rejected MS back then did so at a much higher cost than green chat bubbles. It was worth it though. And we did win, eventually.
      - chasil 2y ago
        Microsoft could not win, although they tried very hard. Windows was never going to scale down to the portable devices that we now use (because defeating Apple would have been very difficult, and AOSP made it insurmountable). Windows was never going to scale up to the top 500 supercomputer list (for largely economic reasons). Microsoft itself has tacitly admitted that Azure is better served by Linux, and we ponder why. Did the DoJ actions against Microsoft really have an impact? I don't know.
      - specialist 2y ago
        > ...without salting the earth of any rivals. Microsoft embodied the adage "It's not enough to win. Everyone else must lose."

stackghost 2y ago

"Postel" is not a term that carries any significance for me, and Googling that word didn't turn anything up that seemed relevant. Who or what is a Postel?

teraflop 2y ago
It's a reference to "Postel's law" which is a pretty well-known principle in the networking world, and in software more broadly. Named after Jon Postel, who edited and published many of the RFCs describing core Internet protocols. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle
Ndymium 2y ago
It's a reference to Jon Postel who wrote the following in RFC 761[0]: TCP implementations should follow a general principle of robustness: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. Postel's Law is also known as the Robustness principle. [1] [0] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc761#section-2.10 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc761#section-2.10 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle
- IshKebab 2y ago
  Ironically it leads to less robust systems in the long term.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Postel's Law is also known as the Robustness principle. Really? It seems like it's obviously just a description of how natural language works.† But in that case, there's an enforcement mechanism (not well understood) that causes everyone to be conservative in what they send. We can observe, by the natural language 'analogy', that the consequence of following this principle is that you never have backwards compatibility. Otherwise things generally work. † Notably, it has nothing to do with how math works, making it a strange choice for programming.
- arcanemachiner 2y ago

cesarb 2y ago

> "We are in a post-Postel world" is a great way to put it. See also RFC 9413 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9413.html https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9413.html), originally called "draft-thomson-postel-was-wrong" (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-thomson-postel-was-wrong/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-thomson-postel-was-wr...).

Brian_K_White 2y ago

There is no such thing as a post Postel world. But handling the input in any other way than crashing or ub IS perfectly Postel. Deciding that nul is invalid data, and refusing to allow it, and refusing to munge the data and proceed based on the munged data that you essentially made up, as long as whatever you did do instead was graceful and intentional, to me that is perfectly Postel.