My usual would be "the first thing that comes to mind is X". If they have tried it, they know that I'm just throwing out ideas rather than calling them stupid, and if they haven't tried it, it's a gentle enough nudge towards a potential solution.
Help me ask why you didn't just
31–40 of 363 posts
Re: Help me ask why you didn't just
#32"what happened when you tried sshd?"/"what went wrong when you tried sshd?"
Re: Help me ask why you didn't just
#33"Can you walk me through what you've tried so far?"
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Re: Help me ask why you didn't just
#34Here's how I have approached it lately. Would love to know what people think:
>My mind goes towards using X to achieve this. Curious to know if it's something you've explored and how it might not be the best fit for this use-case.
Re: Help me ask why you didn't just
#35My go to for this is "My first thought would be to use sshd here. I assume you've tried that?"
Yeh or “I’m guessing ‘obvious solution’ didn’t work?” Either way any phrasing that implies you view them as an intelligent person who may have slipped up vs you just assume they are dumb will work fine?
Re: Help me ask why you didn't just
#36“I assume X didn’t work?”
This assumes the problem is more complex than it first appears, implies that you’re still searching for another solution along with them. And in the unlikely case it is the right answer, you can both laugh.
Re: Help me ask why you didn't just
#37"At first glance with what little I know about the project, my first thought would be sshd. Please fill me in on the background here so I have more context and can better understand the problem space and chain of logic."
Re: Help me ask why you didn't just
#38Or just don’t get offended so quickly, this is just how people tend to speak sometimes. Don’t implicitly add bad intent or insults when none were explicitly made.
I think it's OK to expect that people in the workplace take responsibility for improving their own social skills, which is really what this boils down to.
To be honest though, many times I think this kind of situation can be avoided by talking through the problem with others at the beginning.
Re: Help me ask why you didn't just
#39"have you tried xyz?" The problem with the other approaches is that they imply that you are judging the person. This one only implies something that they may have missed.
Unfortunately, if "xyz" is one of the approaches they did already try/dismiss, it still comes across as patronising.
Re: Help me ask why you didn't just
#40Or just don’t get offended so quickly, this is just how people tend to speak sometimes. Don’t implicitly add bad intent or insults when none were explicitly made.
"assume good intent" is a good rule of thumb, but there are ways the author of the code review can also communicate in a way that's inviting a constructive conversation, rather than potentially leading the author of the code to have to "defend" their position.