Message-ID: <UkwhoLW00WBwQ6lnRw@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue,  9 Jan 1996 16:24:39 -0500 (EST)
From: John Gardiner Myers <jgm+@CMU.EDU>
To: drums@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: "be liberal in what you accept" considered harmful
In-Reply-To: <EBGX5826346339@MPA15AB>
References: <EBGX5826346339@MPA15AB>

<RANDY@MPA15AB.MV.UNISYS.COM> writes:
> Wbat's a software developer to do?

A software developer is to do what a software developer has to do.
Sometimes, this means holding one's nose and accepting garbage.  If
there is to be a move to be made from liberalism to strictness in,
say, the internet mail area, it will only effectively happen as a
coordinated effort by the major players.

The point of my previous post was not to say that implementers should
immediately start becoming nit-pickingly conservative.  The point was
to question/attack the "be liberal" mantra as a fundamental concept
for designing Internet systems.  Once it beomes no longer an axiom, we
can then hopefully make engineered decisons about what or what not to
accept in any specific situation.

-- 
_.John G. Myers		Internet: jgm+@CMU.EDU
			LoseNet:  ...!seismo!ihnp4!wiscvm.wisc.edu!give!up