Re: who owns the code? was Re: Distinguishing type names from other identifiers

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Paul says

  I can tell you from experience that an engineer needs to have a circuit (HW
  engineer) or a piece of code (SW engineer) that he/she feels that was
  created (and maintained) by them in order to feel a sense of satisfaction
  in their contribution to the project. I think that code reviews by piers
  (i.e. inspections) are a good balance between communal development of
  code and private ownership.

Careful here, you are just saying that in YOUR experience, YOU need to
have this feeling, but you are quite wrong to project this on all others.
So, if we take "an engineer" to mean you personally (and those who feel
as you do), fine, but not everyone needs or appreciates this personal
ownership.

  People need to feel a sense of pride in the goods and services they
  produce in order for them to produce those goods and services to the
  best of their ability This directly translates into quality.

Absolutely! But this can be a group sense of pride, and in my experience
the team spirit that comes from this is tremendously valuable. I think
you will find that people who have worked in this kind of cooperative
environment have found it very rewarding and productive.

After all, imagine if a sports team were entirely populated by people only
interested in what *they* could accomplish, as opposed to what the *team*
working together could accomplish.

One obvious disadvantage of the ownership model is that it makes it hard
to transfer things around. If you feel you own a piece of the system, then
you are not going to be happy turning it over to someone else, even if
such a transfer of responsbilities makes good sense from a team point of
view.

I realize that many, perhaps most, engineers reading this list simply
don't have the experience of working as part of a unified team. Too bad!