I have a question, that bothers me a lot: When someone says "there's a better way to do it", aren't they actually saying "[I think that] there's a better way to do it"? I think I understand that saying, simply, "I don't like the way this is done" isn't helpful, but I don't see how it's necessarily "personal", or rather, that any critique can be anything other than personal. Anything you say is expressing a thing you…
Author here. I like to say 'this way would be better because...' as much as possible. Providing a business case to back up your claim makes it less personal. Receiving feedback is never fun, but IMO it's easier to weather when there's a reason for that feedback being given that's more than someone else's opinion. Also having coding guidelines/linters is important from transitioning the conversation from 'I think it s…
The latter one is just dropping words; it's still a think you think, whether you acknowledge that or not.