In Validation Vexation, I wrote a bit about ways that validation rules for user-entered data can go awry by being too narrowly-defined. This post adds three more principles for dealing with data validation which are primarily focused on the results of the validation rather than the rules used to do it. The examples [...]
Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send.
- Postel’s Prescription
Previous posts here have discussed reducing the burden of data entry on your application’s users by cutting down on the number of items that they are required to provide and, even if something is required, allowing it to remain incomplete for as [...]
In Minimize Data Requirements, I talked a bit about allowing users to save incomplete data because there’s no reason to insist that all data must be provided before any of it is accepted.
While that may be a good negative reason (”there’s no reason not to”), there are also positive reasons for allowing this:
It makes your [...]
There’s a long-standing tendency for software to enforce completeness and consistency in stored data. It has never truly been necessary in the real world and it has become something of a monster with the rise of the internet as websites seem to be constantly outdoing each other to collect every conceivable piece of information [...]
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