Today I had a conversation with co-worker about the two software components we were trying to integrate in the system we work on. In that conversation I noticed that we both kept referring to the software components as "you" and "I". If you had been within earshot of this conversation you would have heard phrases like "…you should send the dates in GMT so that I can search correctly…" I don't think this conversational style is uncommon among developers. Clearly it's not logically correct—it's not me sending dates, it's my code. It's not him who is searching, it's his code. Why do we do this?
For some reason I've always been a little bothered by this and have always felt like it should be avoided. I dislike this way of speaking about a system because of how easy it is to personalize code that someone has written. I think it's simply too easy to make a statement that sounds like a criticism of the person instead of the work. A criticism of the latter can be hard enough to take, but when it's misconstrued with a personal critique it's very easy for feelings to get hurt and team morale to take a nose-dive. In my experience it takes far longer to gain the trust of your teammates than it does to lose it.
The other reason I don't like it is that it reinforces ownership boundaries around particular parts of the code. In an ideal world your team members would be able to move fluidly about the codebase depending on the features to be implemented. In reality this can become difficult, but like a lot of thinks in life I think it's a good "stretch-goal". So when we speak in personal pronouns instead of component names it seems to reinforce these barriers (or maybe it simply highlights them.)
I've found that it's difficult to avoid talking about systems in these terms. I have to make a conscious effort to not do this in much the same way I have to remember to floss. Both seem like unnatural activities that require a lot of discipline to maintain. I can understand why I might be inclined to forget flossing regularly, but it's not as clear to me why all of us developers want to personify code in our daily speech. Any ideas?