A Developer’s Etiquette Guide

I would very much like to see something like “A Developer’s Etiquette Guide” to train the team that I’m leading.  What is it with developers who always start sentences with “My Function does <insert blah blah here>” and “My class does <insert boasting here>”.

I’ve worked with some really good team members through the years.  With some, it’s like the best of paired programming, pure efficiency.  But I’ve also worked with developers where everything is theirs, even if you started it and they just maintain it.  Is it a lack of self worth or do they think they own the intellectual property?

It sounds so anti-team oriented and seems to slow the actual development process.  When individuals take a healthy ownership in the development process, I think that it should be in product achievements, usually measured by customer satisfaction and not a My, Mine, Me attitude.  I suppose a Developer’s Etiquette Guide wouldn’t sell well because after all, most developers are usually just average people who write some average code and go home.

This is one of those things that’s been bloggin’ in my brain for a while.  Not quite a peeve, just an observation.