There was a great article at some point that explained why 'be liberal in what you accept' is a very bad engineering practice in certain circumstances, such as setting a standard, because it causes users to be confused and annoyed when a value accepted by system A is subsequently not accepted by supposedly compatible system B. Leading to pointless discussions about what the spec 'intended' and subtle incompatibility. Anyone know what article I mean?
Thats pretty much my experience when building software as well. A lot of the time I have been liberal to incorporate legacy data, and every time in has ended up being the cause of the majority of bugs in the systems I have built.
