There was an interesting article in Nature, arguing that our moral intuitions are formed as much by rational deliberation as by our experiences (despite the latter being more en vogue in academic circles - who knew!).

It got me thinking about how in any field (whether it be software development or biology, finance, etc.) people have very finely developed intuitions about what is "right" or "wrong" - something that seems akin to moral judgement. This happens in software development without a doubt - people who have been in the field for a while can have very powerful, immediate, gut reactions to problems - they just know that a certain path is "right" or "wrong".

The question I'm kicking around is, in software development, how are our "moral" intuitions best formed - by rational deliberation (e.g. reading, observing, studying, listening) or personal experience (playing many roles, living in the trenches)? In other words, which route would lead to greater "moral wisdom" - more study or more lived experiences?

(This question is a lot like the kerfuffle about Justice Sotomayor's "wise latina" comments months back - is she more "wise", coming from a rough neighborhood in the Bronx, than someone who came from the upper-middle class 'burbs?)

My sense is that no amount of study or observation can make up for living in the trenches and feeling the pain of bad decisions (your own and others'!). I can read all day about why unit testing is great, but it doesn't sink in to the level of "moral intuition" until I live through an experience where there's a million lines of code, no unit tests, and so no clue as to whether your change broke something else or not.

Anyway, just a thought...

Agile methodologies hinge on a model of collective code ownership - basically, the idea is:

I may work on module A this iteration and you on module B, but next iteration I may work on B and you on C.

No developer has sole responsibility for any piece of the system, we all own it together. If I need to update some piece of the system to implement my assigned user story, I can do it, with the caveat that unit tests should pass and probably some quality check should be met (e.g. peer review, etc.).

In any non-trivially sized team, this is probably a necessity; the alternative model, strict ownership of code, will just yield unnecessary gridlock, turf-wars, and code ghettos as developers operate unchecked in their own silo, hording knowledge, and protecting the sanctity of their individual assets at the expense of the overall architecture.

And even knowing this, that individual code ownership isn't really feasible in an organization, I still think that when we accept the model of collective ownership, something important is lost: craftsmanship.

Sure, Agile advocates would argue that pride of ownership just extends to the work of the team rather than just that of the individual. To some degree this does exist, but it's not the same. When we have ownership of something, whether a design document, an API, or a UI screen, it's our reputation on the line, our creativity and execution that make it a success or failure. We make decisions on our own, quickly, without having to reach team consensus, for good or for ill, accepting the consequences. And when it does succeed, we derive a strong satisfaction from knowing that someone found value in what we alone designed and created. We helped make something better, easier, faster. The freedom of owning our work is what makes programming fun...and meaningful.

Without ownership, this satisfaction is muffled. When people collectively own everything, no one owns anything in particular. Collective ownership often means collective design, and so there's less investment in the overall success, because, hey, these aren't necessarily my ideas, they're the group's. And because everyone's a stakeholder in all the code, decisions are often made via sophistry and compromise, producing an end design that often looks more like a piece of legislation and less like a piece of craftsmanship.

It reminds me of a favorite quote of mine from Steinbeck in East of Eden:

I know, to argue against collective ownership in the era of wikipedia, social media, and open source is probably insane. Working collaboratively obviously can produce high quality results, and benefit the collaborator as well.

Even still, talking to colleagues and friends that do software development on teams, I see this unsatisfied need to own. Just about every programmer has dreams about their own side project, where he makes the decisions, where he is responsible. It's this freedom which most of us need, and which produces works of craftsmanship.