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

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.

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

Ask not first what the system does; ask what it does it to!

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.

There are only two things wrong with C++: The initial concept and the implementation.

Incorrect documentation is often worse than no documentation.