On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 09:39, Michael Witten <mfwitten@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I'm morally opposed to this kind of thing. The caller should be > required to test whether quote_rfc2047() is required, as it's not the > job of quote_rfc2047 to validate. Suppose that quote_rfc2047 were > actually part of a library of useful functions that my program > imports. Perhaps my program knows that it must always quote some piece > of text. Why, then, should my program be forced to waste the cycles to > perform a useless test? > > IMnsHO, verification should always be done by the caller with one > exception: Interactive (human) input should always be verified, > because humans represent an unreliable component in the system (in > terms of digital systems, their asynchronous input must be > synchronized with the clocked system). WIth this model, there's are > fewer wasted cycles, because you can reuse verification across similar > functions, and the code (particularly library code) is easier to > understand. I should add, though, that making the logic of the program clear is a good idea. In that sense, your approach makes sense. Since we 'own' quote_rfc2047(), I'd say we could take your approach, but rename the function to something like quote_rfc2047_if_necessary(). If quote_rfc2047() were part of a library, I think the only moral solution would be to insist that callers wrap it in another function named quote_rfc2047_if_necessary(). -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html