Pride and Prejudice

You have delighted us long enough.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Pragmatic Programmers don't shirk from responsibility. Instead, we rejoice in accepting challenges and in making our expertise well known. If we are responsible for a design, or a piece of code, we do a job we can be proud of.

Tip 70

Sign Your Work

Craftsmen of an earlier age were proud to sign their work. You should be, too.

Project teams are still made up of people, however, and this rule can cause trouble. On some projects, the idea of code ownership can cause cooperation problems. People may become territorial, or unwilling to work on common foundation elements. The project may end up like a bunch of insular little fiefdoms. You become prejudiced in favor of your code and against your coworkers.

That's not what we want. You shouldn't jealously defend your code against interlopers; by the same token, you should treat other people's code with respect. The Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") and a foundation of mutual respect among the developers is critical to make this tip work.

Anonymity, especially on large projects, can provide a breeding ground for sloppiness, mistakes, sloth, and bad code. It becomes too easy to see yourself as just a cog in the wheel, producing lame excuses in endless status reports instead of good code.

While code must be owned, it doesn't have to be owned by an individual. In fact, Kent Beck's successful eXtreme Programming method [URL 45] recommends communal ownership of code (but this also requires additional practices, such as pair programming, to guard against the dangers of anonymity).

We want to see pride of ownership. "I wrote this, and I stand behind my work." Your signature should come to be recognized as an indicator of quality. People should see your name on a piece of code and expect it to be solid, well written, tested , and documented. A really professional job. Written by a real professional.

A Pragmatic Programmer.