Children are created, raised, cared for and we hope that they will live a long and proud life only to end long after their creator's has ended. They are their creator's legacy.
Your code is not your child, it is an animal raised for slaughter. Your code will die. It will die before your death. Your code's entire purpose is to die. Your code enables some new function and if successful that new function will grow, it will mature, it will eventually outlive the usefullness you've provided. When successful your code creates value that outlives it and the faster the better. When unsuccessful a mercy killing is most appropriate.
Believing that our code is our children makes us territorial, protective. Nobody is allowed to kill it, only improve it. The idea that our code can be perfect, that it can change to handle so many new concerns leads to the birth of frameworks and plugin systems. These systems brutalize creativity by forcing new value to conform to the standards of our aging children.
