How Do You Let Go

Context:

You've spent months, even years, of your life on a project which you've poured blood, sweat, and tears into. You've completed VersionOne successfully, congratulations! ShamelessSelfPromotion! Now... HowDoYouLetGo and move on, trusting another person or team to carry "your baby" through its next stage of life?

I have a very hard time dealing with handing over even pieces of a project, let alone the whole thing. It's very hard for me to let go and watch people who I know don't care, or care as much about their code as I do, take the reins. I think this stems from the fact that I take everything so personally when it comes to coding... I really care about my code.

How can I overcome this feeling or is this something I need to learn to accept?

-- DrewMarsh

Either let go of it completely (probably keeping VersionOne for yourself in case you'll need it later), or use VersionControl to see what people do, discuss the changes with them and gradually start to trust them. -- PanuKalliokoski

For me, one key is to remember that it is not my code: it is the team's code, my employer's code, or my client's code. I remind myself that personal CodeOwnership is a bad thing, even when it is my own elegantly perfect code under consideration. Another key is to remember that whenever I can turn something over to somebody else, it's an opportunity for me to start working on something new. -- KrisJohnson