If somebody left a sticky saying "stay the hell out of my code" I'd reply "code it so nobody ever has the need to even think about it"; Which would be the polite reponse. You learn so much from others code, what to do and what not to do.
Remember once doing a lovely JSP COBOL program only to have it butched into something with goto all over the place. Turned out that was the standard, no matter how right or wrong, standards help for consitency. Now if you have wild cards who end up obviscating there code, just to stop people touching it then they need help or you will only end up needing alot more help later on when things go wrong and they will. So politicaly the best way and just winning move is to push the standards and if they don't have any then you instigate them. Always some higher up manager who will easily be be swayed, especialy if you can say it will help to eventualy get some standard like BS5750 or ISO9002 or whatever the flavour of the month is on that front. Remember code motivates the CPU, but what motivates your company managers to do the right things. office politics is alot easier when you get it fighting itself and you can just get on with what you like doing peacfuly.
Remember once doing a lovely JSP COBOL program only to have it butched into something with goto all over the place. Turned out that was the standard, no matter how right or wrong, standards help for consitency. Now if you have wild cards who end up obviscating there code, just to stop people touching it then they need help or you will only end up needing alot more help later on when things go wrong and they will. So politicaly the best way and just winning move is to push the standards and if they don't have any then you instigate them. Always some higher up manager who will easily be be swayed, especialy if you can say it will help to eventualy get some standard like BS5750 or ISO9002 or whatever the flavour of the month is on that front. Remember code motivates the CPU, but what motivates your company managers to do the right things. office politics is alot easier when you get it fighting itself and you can just get on with what you like doing peacfuly.