23. Assertive Programming

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us.

—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

It seems that there's a mantra that every programmer must memorize early in his or her career. It is a fundamental tenet of computing, a core belief that we learn to apply to requirements, designs, code, comments, just about everything we do. It goes