be-strict

Be strict in what you send, but generous in what you receive

"Be strict in what you send, but generous in what you receive" is a principle in computing (originally referring to e-mail), which suggests that systems (such as e-mail relays or microformat parsers) should be very strict in making sure that their output conforms to standards, but flexible in interpreting data received, which may not adhere to the relevant standard, but whose meaning is still unambiguous.

See hcard-brainstorming#ADR with no children for an example of how this might be applied.

(Anyone got a better explanation, references, or etymology?)