I agree with this - while at a single less-than-a-few-thousand-people-company I'd generally call that a single "garden" - and think it's a good extension on the

I agree with this - while at a single less-than-a-few-thousand-people-company I'd generally call that a single "garden" - and think it's a good extension on the original article. The author, though, focuses very narrowly on the "code" level instead of the "components of the system" level. If you can grow people into being the ones who know how the components of the system work together at a layer above how the code for any given component works, you can have a retention plan and keep institutional knowledge. (Or even then move people into a layer above that, as the system grows, etc). You still won't retain everyone, some people want to jump between gardens, but you will be able to retain a LOT of people, and it's much better than telling people they have to own all their individual lines of code forever.