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{{short description|design guideline for software}}
In [[computing]], the '''robustness principle''' is a design guideline for software that states: "be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others". It is often reworded as: "be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept". The principle is also known as '''Postel's law''', after [[Jon Postel]], who
▲The principle is also known as '''Postel's law''', after [[Jon Postel]], who wrote in an early specification of [[Transmission Control Protocol|TCP]]:<ref>{{cite IETF |title=Transmission Control Protocol |rfc=761 |editor1-last=Postel |editor1-first=Jon |editor1-link=Jon Postel |date=January 1980 |publisher=[[Internet Engineering Task Force|IETF]] |access-date=June 9, 2014}}</ref>
In other words, programs that send messages to other machines (or to other programs on the same machine) should conform completely to the specifications, but programs that receive messages should accept non-conformant input as long as the meaning is clear.
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