Well, this is certainly is an interesting discussion.

I don't know why Dr. Dewar insists on making the 
point that if a programmer is made the ultimate one 
responsible for some task, then this implies the collapse 
of the team spirit and the immediate termination of
the cooperation between people working in the same project.

let me just give one simple example from real life, where 
people are assigned ownership of something, BUT still help 
each others.

When a patient enters a hospital he or she are assigned a doctor 
to take care of them. Lets assume for the sake of the example, 
that there are 2 doctors, one is Dr. A and the other is Dr. B in the 
same hospital, both are very qualified medical doctors.

Now Dr. A is responsible for their patient and assigned to take 
care of some specific patient,  the name of Dr. A is put on the top of
the chart of the patient so that every one knows who patient this is, and 
every one knows who is the Dr. in charge of  that patient and who to call
if something goes wrong with this patient.

It is Dr. A who is held accountable for something going wrong 
with his patient, notice I said �his patient� ,  I did not say  
�the ministry of health� patient,  or the �HMO� patient  or the 
�committee in charge of the hospital� patient.

Now, does this means that if Dr. B comes in one day when 
Dr. A was not on duty, and sees the patient of Dr. A in trouble, 
may be having some difficulty  breathing, or has falling off the bed 
and screaming for help, will Dr. B turn around and say "You are not 
my patient, so I will not help you, you are Dr.  A�s patient". ?? 

offcourse NOT!  Any doctor worth anything will jump in and help in the 
emergency, and so will many other Drs. available around. If Dr. B 
does not help because the patient is not his, then this is a bad Dr., it 
does not mean that the system of  assigning a patient to some specific
doctor was a bad idea.

Will Dr. B go and give some medicine to Dr. A�s patient because he 
thinks this new medicine is better what Dr. A has been giving the patient 
without first asking Dr. A? offcourse NOT !  this is something never 
heard of, just ask any medical doctor.  No Doctor will change or give new 
medicine to another doctor patient without first consulting the doctor 
in charge of the patient.

But according to Dr. Dewar style, each Dr. in the hospital should be free to
give any patient any medicine they think best,  because patients are all 
owned by the hospital or by the collection of the Drs. This is not only not  
practically, it is also dangerous, since not each Dr. can have the time to gain 
good knowledge of the conditions of each patient to give the correct 
medicine and the attention to give them the best individual care. 

Does this mean that Doctors do not discuses their patients with each others? 
offcourse they do, does this means doctors do not help each others, offcourse
they do.

Now, replace the patient above with an Ada package or a C++ class, 
and replace the medical doctor with software engineer,  and you 
will see what I mean.


Nasser