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It's good when dealing with humans, it's bad when dealing with machines.

Allow humans a fudge factor for ease of use, but not at the cost of integrity.

For instance, allow phone numbers with separators, or spacing, or shortened versions etc. It's aggravating when a form asks for a cc number and allows a user to type spaces but the field has a max length so you have to backtrack and delete all the spaces.

Make apis conservative in what they accept. This reduces complexity and the likelihood of bugs.



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