I think the suggestions in the article are the victim of a lack of context, in a certain way. Suppose the code was "list.extend([1])" (Python). And the comment

I think the suggestions in the article are the victim of a lack of context, in a certain way. Suppose the code was "list.extend([1])" (Python). And the comment was "why didn't you just list.append(1)"? That would be a completely reasonable thing to say. I think what I want to caution is that there is a middle ground that this article is ignoring. Yes, sometimes it is uncouth to just say "why didn't you just _". But it can also be important to have a little bit thicker skin, as sometimes you will get a comment that looks just like that, and there will be a good reason.