Offensive programming

Offensive programming is a name used for the branch of defensive programming that expressly departs from defensive principles when dealing with errors resulting from software bugs. Although the name is a reaction to extreme interpretations of defensive programming, the two are not fundamentally in conflict. Rather, offensive programming adds an explicit priority of not tolerating errors in wrong places: the point where it departs from extreme interpretations of defensive programming is in preferring the presence of errors from within the program's line of defense to be blatantly obvious over the hypothetical safety benefit of tolerating them. This preference is also what justifies using assertions.