Collective Wisdom from the Experts 175
The quality of the code I write affects the quality of the code you write. What if
my code is of poor quality? Even if you write very clean code, it is at the points
where you use my code that your code quality will degrade to close to the
quality of my code. You can apply many patterns and techniques to limit the
damage, but the damage has already been done. I have caused you to do more
than what you needed to do, simply because I did not think about you when I
was living in my moment.
I may consider my code to be clean, but I can still make it better just by Ubuntu
coding. What does Ubuntu code look like? It looks just like good, clean code.
It is not about the code, the artifact. It is about the act of creating that artifact.
Coding for your friends, with Ubuntu, will help your team live your values and
reinforce your principles. The next person that touches your code, in whatever
way, will be a better person and a better developer.
Zen is about the individual. Ubuntu is about Zen for a group of people. Very,
very rarely do we create code for ourselves alone.