> I've heard him tell other developers that they should change a single variable name. That is totally legit, if there is a naming convention in place on the p

> I've heard him tell other developers that they should change a single variable name. That is totally legit, if there is a naming convention in place on the project and the developer violated it. If it's just his personal caprice, then yeah it's dubious, but better an idiosyncratic dictator than no standards at all. > then come to work the next day to have found out that the manager re-wrote it claiming "simplification" of the code, which is in fact not true This is extremely common. You've already documented how this shop has no good procedures, so people waste a lot of their time rewriting stuff. I hate jobs where I have to be someone else's extra hands. It's a sign of poor organization on every level. That said - I hope as an open source programmer you've learned not to get attached to your code.