Unfortunately, this tends to contradict the notion that "programming is a social activity". There are, of course, many situations where that notion does not or

Unfortunately, this tends to contradict the notion that "programming is a social activity". There are, of course, many situations where that notion does not or need not apply, but I would expect it does to the vast majority of the HN audience during at least some point in their career. More importantly, the OP's question makes the social nature of the context pretty clear, IMO. That said, much of the advice in the thread is to accompany criticism with an alternative solution, and I agree that having a working solution (even proof of concept) beats a proposal/theory any day.