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From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Q: type ... is new String
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2012 18:51:13 -0500
Organization: Jacob Sparre Andersen Research & Innovation
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Date: 2012-06-06T18:51:13-05:00
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"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message 
news:1tr1nuc1xy9mp$.d5s1fz9vuczz.dlg@40tude.net...
> On Mon, 04 Jun 2012 22:56:01 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>
>> On 04.06.12 19:05, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>
>>> There is nothing ambiguous in character encoding,
>>
>> In processing data from any source that speaks HTTP, you don't really 
>> know
>> the character encoding: you may be told the encoding is X but actually it
>> is Y.
>
> <=> I do know the encoding.
>
> You are trying to pursue some absolute truth, e.g. "true encoding" of a
> broken page, which simply does not exist and is irrelevant. You should
> define an encoding and that is all the corresponding component need to 
> know
> about it.

I agree with Dmitry here. It is idiotic for web tools to do anything with 
malformed input (pages, whatever) other than to reject them. If they did 
that, we'd have far fewer ways to attack web programs (like browsers), and 
far fewer malformed inputs as well (because hardly anyone would want to 
write pages that couldn't be rendered -- they'd fix them in a hurry).

The sloppiness in handling input is the bane of the Internet; software that 
doesn't do that is garbage. Unfortuately, garbage is all we have (thus the 
popularity of apps).

Note that for my spam filter, I block or quarantine almost everything 
malformed. I had to allow some holes in that, because some very common tools 
and sites send out only malformed mail; which is aggrevating and allows ways 
for spammers and other criminals to make successful attacks. Grumble.

                                       Randy.