Comment by malux85

When you’re a junior it’s natural to overvalue your code, because you’re still learning this incredibly complex thing called programming, and that code took a lot of effort to produce!

But the actual truth is that the code itself is nearly worthless. The important thing is who you became when you wrote it. You learned interface abstraction, api design, how to debug, how to execute it in your head, the tooling, and most importantly you got that spark of pure joy when it finally worked.

If others copy your code they get none of that, they only get the little worthless bit, they might win a battle (cheat on an assignment) but they will loose the war (they don’t grow or experience joy) so don’t worry about it, they will flake out, while you grow and reach for even greater things!