If you manage to leave your ego (and thus your opinions) out of the argument and only provide the reasons behind it, it should make no difference. There might be other reasons that you have overlooked, but then you can pull the "Thanks for providing this perspective to improve my position." move.
👎 "Have you considered Y instead of X? I feel like that would fit better here."
Ego again. An objective argument should be about our reasons, not about us. They might be incomplete, but they should be sound.
👍 "Have you considered Y instead of X? It comes with an API that solves the issue Z for you."
Otherwise, great point here: asking questions to provide indirect criticism is a good way not to look too assertive.
I see why you would want to remove ego, but there's nothing wrong in admitting subjectivity. Unfortunately, it's difficult to be completely objective in every topic one discusses, specially because of biases we are even unaware of, and because not every argument is objective. Sometimes we have opinions that we interpret as facts and sometimes the subject is an inseparable part of the discussed topic.
You may make subjective remarks of opinions (especially positive ones, those are good in a code review and may improve team spirit), but don't confuse them with actual criticism.
If you manage to leave your ego (and thus your opinions) out of the argument and only provide the reasons behind it, it should make no difference. There might be other reasons that you have overlooked, but then you can pull the "Thanks for providing this perspective to improve my position." move.
Ego again. An objective argument should be about our reasons, not about us. They might be incomplete, but they should be sound.
Otherwise, great point here: asking questions to provide indirect criticism is a good way not to look too assertive.
I see why you would want to remove ego, but there's nothing wrong in admitting subjectivity. Unfortunately, it's difficult to be completely objective in every topic one discusses, specially because of biases we are even unaware of, and because not every argument is objective. Sometimes we have opinions that we interpret as facts and sometimes the subject is an inseparable part of the discussed topic.
You may make subjective remarks of opinions (especially positive ones, those are good in a code review and may improve team spirit), but don't confuse them with actual criticism.
Yeah, I guess I was thinking of general feedback, more than specifically criticism.