This kind of article dances around it's point in the unproductive way typical of the topic. Here's a condensed version of issue, rather than talking about sympt

This kind of article dances around it's point in the unproductive way typical of the topic. Here's a condensed version of issue, rather than talking about symptoms: The topic at hand is harshness of language used providing feedback on another person's work. In addition to being a developer, I've also worked in garages where people swore like sailors and ball-busting was common. Calibrating my voice for the context starts with understanding every critique has: the harshness intended, the harshness communicated, and the harshness received. This article focuses on the 2nd, leaves out the fact the internet makes it notoriously difficult to communicate voice through text, and assess using the common buzzword "toxic." Which, as far as I can tell based on context clues, is intended to mean "anything harsher than my personal preference threshold." Just as important are parts 1 and 3. The feedback "pull your head out of your ass" can be run of the mill, or beyond the pale. It all depends on the context and participants. Note: This is very much NOT a point about "having thick skin," it's about understanding how sharp the comment is in the first place. Each critique also has: the amount of ego hit to the recipient intended, and the amount of ego hit perceived. This one is about "having a thick skin," and where we might ask, "How harsh is too harsh, depending on [bucket of other factors provided by the context]?" I'm not looking for a dissertation, but I expect people speaking on the topic to show an understanding of the complexity at hand. Otherwise it looks like a pack of schoolmarms trying to enforce I-know-best standards. A piece of career advice I received can be paraphrased as: "Software development in Silicon Valley is full of people from the participation trophy generation that have only ever held back-office jobs. And it's San Francisco." -- That's all that needs to be said. From that we can derive what the standards for behavior in code reviews are. And if it sounds like I'm implying that the hegemony in software development demands we treat each other with kids gloves, it's because I am.