Be proud of your code!

I'm usually quite proud of my code. If I'm not, I keep polishing it. When I review code of my guys, one of the things I insist of is to have the person's name on his code. Like on Dexter Horton Building.

If the guy says: "but all I did here is just to add this one little function".
"Well," I say to him, "so add your name above the function".

If the guy says: "but all I did was to fix this line. I didn't really added any new line of code".
"Well," I say to him, "so add your name above the line that you fixed, with a date and explanation of the fix".

But if the guy says: "hmmm, I'm not sure I'd like to put my name here. I'm not sure it works so well". Then I jump and say "haha! this is exactly why I insist on having your name there. Not initials. Not your nick name. A name that we can trace back when you will be a big manager at IBM, so you better don't leave any bug there."



The building above is real. I took this picture myself (I won't let you know where it's located. If you're curious you would probably google it.) I use this picture when I talk about code review and my insistence on having the developer's name on his or her code. Alex from mistralzonline, already documented this picture as part of his talk on present and represent, at his blog "On Everything And Nothing In Particular".