Re: [opendkim:bugs] #222 Enhance config file element handling for unrecognized tags/parameters

From: Murray S. Kucherawy <msk_at_blackops.org>
Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:25:25 -0700 (PDT)

On Sun, 3 May 2015, SM wrote:
>> is it called "minimum surprise" ?

Which surprise would you rather have: "mail is not working" or "mail is
silently admitting stuff I consider to be dangerous"?

>> the removed feature broke an existing configuration. that's bad.
>> for the user and the reputation of the software in question.
>>
>> To avoid such things any piece of software could simply print a warning,
>> accept and ignore historical parameter.
>
> A feature was removed. In this case it is better to fix the configuration
> file instead of having the user believe that the feature will still be
> working. How about printing a warning in the next version and failing in
> versions after that?

I'm not convinced that printing a warning gets anyone's attention these
days. How often do you watch your machine boot to look for warnings, or
look in your logs for interesting things, in a potentially sensitive
production environment? I know this works at the "hobby" level, but I
think it's not helpful once you start to function at scale.

-MSK
Received on Mon May 04 2015 - 18:26:02 PST