Sunday, January 06, 2019

What's wrong with collective code ownership?

The Consultant’s answer of course would be “it depends.”

For now I just would like to focus on one important issues: In today's world ‘code’ is something quite different from what ‘code’ was in the nineties where we had things like a smalltalk image in which all the code of the project resides. Today we have things like infrastructure as code, configurations that are in some cases more complex that the software itself, pipeline-code, glue-code and many more things that affect the usability and usefulness of the system under discussion.

Therefore I propose to extend the concept. Let’s move on. Or –from my point of view– let’s get back to the original idea.

IMHO today what’s needed is an interpretation of collective ownership that engulfs the whole system. Collective ownership in this idea is not so much the idea that anyone is allowed fiddle with any item of the system.

To me today's idea of collective ownership means that anyone is expected to make all the changes that are necessary to keep the integrity of the system as a whole after some change or addition. This especially includes involving potentially affected parties and is much more about everyone’s responsibility for the whole system. And in today’s reality there are only very few people who can change all the kinds of code. Therefore, form my point of view, shared ownership also includes the responsibility to collaborate.

till next time
  Michael Mahlberg

1 comment:

Cosima Laube said...

When I was reading your article I found myself quickly thinking "beyond code" - especially when it comes to collective ownership. Basically when "keep[ing] the integrity of the system as a whole after some change or addition" an artful interplay of biz-, tech- and people-savy folks is beneficial.
So I shared fully support your conclusion that ownership also includes the responsibility to collaborate. And I underline that if we want to invest in something making businesses more successful investing in better collaboration is the way to go.