My point is that what qualifies as incompetence is extremely subjective. Saying "this person's work is incompetent", I think, usually amounts to nothing more th

My point is that what qualifies as incompetence is extremely subjective. Saying "this person's work is incompetent", I think, usually amounts to nothing more than "this person made mistakes in their work that turn out to be obvious to me because of the particulars of my circumstances." Take me for example. I work as a software developer at a company that hires devs who studied computer science or math mostly from lower-ranked ivies and big state schools. I have an idea of what constitutes good code, and most of my coworkers, owing to our common background, either share this idea or soon find their views being molded by our code review process. When I look at what my more talented classmates are doing who work at Google or an elite startup, I am humbled and a little embarrassed to show them my code. They would consider some of the code that is written in my workplace to be the product of incompetence. When I look at what my liberal arts friends who were hired as web developers are doing at their non-tech companies with only a few months of programming training, I remind myself that I have much more experience than they do and that my response should be to help them as I am able instead of to shame them and adjust the laurels that I rest on. And there are people better than my talented classmates at Google and Airbnb who would call their code incompetent. And still others more talented than them. Etc. And there are people who write code that is even more poor than my liberal arts friends'. And still others, ... etc. Not only is the label of incompetence highly subjective, it is also useless at best and injurious to everyone involved at worst. The less-skilled dev learns nothing by being called a name. Giving harsh criticism from an assumed position of superiority can be gratifying in the moment. I know, I am often tempted into it myself. But it is also a missed opportunity for cultivating empathy for your fellow-human, and a missed opportunity to help someone.