web entry forms, or be careful what you teach.

There is a lot of pages where you asked to provide credit card, SS or phone number. A lot of them requires to type data in specific format: no space, with space, numbers only etc. There is not much coding needed on the page to accept any format and parse out needed info. Some companies like Google do so. Why the other still asking for specific format? IMHO The reason is kind silly. Various validation code is posted as an example in the programming books. Programmers do what they were told to do: Validate to the hell (means to specific format). Annoying thing spread the world. Be careful what you give as example, it can spread the world.