Writing a class without its contract would be similar to producing an engineering component (electrical circuit, VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) chip, bridge, engine...) without a spec. No professional engineer would even consider the idea.

C++ is the only current language making COBOL look good

Constants are widely known for the detestable practice of changing their values; we should prepare ourselves against the consequences of such fickleness

Incorrect documentation is often worse than no documentation.

I have always felt sympathy towards the biologists who accept to debate creationists. Now I also understand them better; one can fight opinions, not articles of faith.

Software entities (classes, modules, functions, etc.) should be open for extension, but closed for modification.

Correctness is clearly the prime quality. If a system does not do what it is supposed to do, then everything else about it matters little.