&gt; I simply said: &quot;I had to rewrite X&#x27;s first pass he was using some older tech and there&#x27;s better ways of doing it now.&quot; ... My boss ... told me that ... I had in fact insulted the other guy...<p>...what? The other guy is too attached to his code.<p>&gt; [People] put their heart and soul into what they do and I should respect their code and them.<p>One thing that <i>every</i> good programmer <i>has</i> to learn to do is to be able to disentangle one&#x27;s ego from one&#x27;s code. It&#x27;s <i>very</i> <i>good</i> to be proud of one&#x27;s accomplishments. It&#x27;s <i>bad</i> to become so attached to one&#x27;s work that one suffers injury from criticism of or attempts to improve the work.<p>If you love your code too much, it&#x27;ll be harder for you to see (or let others help you see) where it needs improvement and when it needs to be thrown away.