This piece reminds me of Linus Torvalds. He's the kind of guy that lives these truths. Always respectful and constructive, never saying code is shit, etc etc. We need more developers like him.
Torvalds is BDFL. If you wrote it, it's widely acknowledged to be good, and people want to add code to it, you're entitled to tell people their contributions are unwanted.
If no one other than the 6 people you're working with have ever read the code and nobody wants to add code to it, you need to really spend some time reading the code before you make a judgement call. At that point, it's better to make the code not shit than simply call it shit.
In software, if you can articulate why it's bad, you can fix it. If you can't articulate why it's bad, keep it to yourself.
We need more developers like Torvalds - not because he's nice, but because he's terrifyingly experienced and completely honest in his feedback. I couldn't think of a better mentor.
