I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm saying that relying on it being a certain value, or one of a set of values, is like relying on the value of a global variable.
we avoid that in software development-land whenever possible, and for good reason.
Your point is moot given that this works and has for decades, and you concede that point.
> we avoid that in software development-land whenever possible, and for good reason.
We also avoid breaking backwards compatibility unless it's really necessary. In this case, granting your premise for the sake of argument, the harm caused by this change exceeds the actual non-harm of the thing you're objecting to regardless of the theoretical badness of that thing.
we avoid that in software development-land whenever possible, and for good reason.