Re: Lua 5.2.0 compile error

On Sun, Nov 2, 2014 at 11:19 AM, Geoff Down <geoffdown@fastmail.net> wrote:

People generally just want their car to work, they don't want to have
to find the geologist that surveyed the wrong oil deposits that made
the wrong sort of petrol that clogged the particular carburetor
that....etc.

Geoff,

I thought your point is very well made. I believe that your argument parallels the Robustness Principle[1], which is to be conservative in what you put out and liberal about what you accept.

I know that this is sage advice and yet I've been a hater of that principle since before I was aware that it was a principle. :) XHTML 1.0 was my best friend, when I was doing that sort of thing.

I would rather that things were strict, so long as the rules are clear and agreed upon. I don't pretend to know if that is the case in POSIX land, but if it is, that may further explain this position.

Recently, I had heard that Jon Postel recanted his own principle, but I couldn't find anything that would substantiate it or expose it as false. I did find an article [2] that captured the "other side", if it can be viewed that way. It may be an interesting read, if you're in the mood to try to understand why someone would rather not add to their own code a very small fix for what is non-compliant somewhere else.

Anyway, your question and the answers have made for an interesting read, so thank you for that!

-Andrew

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle

[2] http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2011/8/114933-the-robustness-principle-reconsidered/fulltext