What is the deal with maintenance engineers thinking every engineer ought to be one? Can't you agree it takes all types or is there something about maintenance that preempts such thoughts?
Edit: Maybe I should go around pretending hackers and poets have the moral high ground.
I think it's contempt for people who won't stand by their work. Maintenance engineer implies a very long term relationship with code but you can't get some self-aggrandizing butterflies to support something they wrote a month ago. The truth should be somewhere in between.
When you're young it's easy to derail your complaints by implying you are not smart enough to appreciate the magnificence of the code. I tend to take Feynman's position that if you're really so great, your solutions will be obvious.
Edit: Maybe I should go around pretending hackers and poets have the moral high ground.