“Huh… why didn’t you just turn this into a function?” Comments that could have been phrased as helpful tips are instead often delivered in ways that imply the other person is somehow strange for not having arrived at the same conclusion.

I used to phrase what I thought were helpful tips in this way. I thought that by phrasing it as a question, I was showing that I wasn't making assumptions about the other person's level of skill, and was leaving room for them to know better than me.

What is the better way to phrase it?

"You should put this in a function." - I seem presumptuous, arrogant, patronizing.

"Why not put this in a function?" - Implies "the other person is somehow strange for not having arrived at the same conclusion."

"If this were in a function, the code would be easier to read." - Implying that the code is hard to read.

Giving advice to colleagues who lack skill is something that I have no idea how to do in a sensitive way, and no one ever tells me how they'd like me to do it. This article points out a serious problem in tech culture, but offers no solution while at the same time implying that the solution is obvious. As I write this, I realize the irony in the article:

“Huh… why didn’t you just turn this into a function?” Comments that could have been phrased as helpful tips are instead often delivered in ways that imply the other person is somehow strange for not having arrived at the same conclusion.

The sentence commits the very sin it criticizes. How meta! I like it for the empathy it elicits, but I churn inside with the feeling of being oh so close and yet so far.

How do I phrase criticism of code as a helpful tip? I can read all the MVC articles in the world, but they don't do me a lick of good if they don't have concrete suggestions for how I should change my behavior aside from "stop doing X". I readily follow "stop doing X" advice so long as X is not essential to the job. But I can't just stop helping people improve their code.