The Importance of Code Ownership

<p>You write it; you own it.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s the philosophy of a software engineering department I once worked in. It is a great philosophy to ensure accountability for any written code.</p> <p>But it is easier said than done.</p> <p>Code ownership, though it sounds simple, is also one that can easily be left unattended over time. The consequence of it is huge. The code will become spaghetti, unmaintainable, and soon a legacy piece of&nbsp;<code>$#!+</code>&nbsp;that no one can figure out how it works.</p> <h2>Each piece of code is written by someone, so the writer is the owner, isn&rsquo;t it?</h2> <p>That&rsquo;s a very simplistic view. It only applies to a solo project or a small team for a small project.</p> <p>In reality, most important and successful projects, even though they started off small, go through different phases that turn a proud shiny code into a pathetic piece of cryptic code everyone fears and despises.</p> <p>To know how that happens, below are the seven phases of code evolution of a project that turns ugly.</p> <h1>1. The Birth</h1> <p>The developer starts a brand new project with a well-thought architecture and clean code structure. It is a small enough project that a single developer understands the entire flow and integration.</p> <p>One person essentially owns the code.</p> <h1>2. The Growth</h1> <p>We start to have more developers contributing to the code. Perhaps a team of 3&ndash;5 developers. We have peer code reviews. We have code pairing. Everyone understands all parts of the code. We have a main lead developer deciding the convention to follow. Clean and consistent.</p> <p><a href="https://betterprogramming.pub/the-underestimated-importance-of-clear-code-ownership-baed758e47b8">Read More</a></p>