Coding is a form of art, and artists are very attached to their pieces. That visceral attachment is what makes programmers passionate and intense. That can be a good thing, but it can also lead to problems.
Unless the entire development organization has only one or two developers, individual code ownership is a dangerous disease. I do not recommend it, nor encourage it for many reasons.
#1 – Emotional Attachment to Code Hurts The Collective Wisdom.
Programmers that identify with their code become attached to it. That emotion causes code to become untouchable by anybody else, and it generates dogmas that grow into turf wars. When emotions are involved, code reviews are difficult. It becomes impossible to make improvements unless the owner of the code approves the changes. ...
