Re:Parse, Don't Validate (2019)
by masklinn on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @07:53AM
(#35054751)
TFA does explain what they mean:
> in my mind, the difference between validation and parsing lies almost entirely in how information is preserved
“parse don’t validate” is a pithy and easy to remember maxim for this preservation.
Because validation is implicitly necessary for parsing to a representation which captures your invariants anyway, by banning validation as a separate concept you ensure sole validation doesn’t get reintroduced, because any validation step outside of a wider parsing process is considered incorrect.
> in my mind, the difference between validation and parsing lies almost entirely in how information is preserved
“parse don’t validate” is a pithy and easy to remember maxim for this preservation.
Because validation is implicitly necessary for parsing to a representation which captures your invariants anyway, by banning validation as a separate concept you ensure sole validation doesn’t get reintroduced, because any validation step outside of a wider parsing process is considered incorrect.