Full disclosure, I work at Google, and I actually find positive comments mostly rare, but code review culture is very different team to team, so I can hardly sp

Full disclosure, I work at Google, and I actually find positive comments mostly rare, but code review culture is very different team to team, so I can hardly speak for the entire company. Personally I try to make them often, but I also try to be thoughtful about making them as to not come off patronizing like you mentioned. Though I’ve never felt like a positive comment ever made me feel patronized in any situation, I think a good way to not come off patronizing is to to make the comment more personal than general, ie: “This is a cool way to use the rest operator (or whatever thing), Ima steal this”. Obviously it needs to be an authentic comment, but I think it’s a significant difference vs “Great use of the rest operator!” When the interpretation on the other end might be “oh so this person is surprised I know these basic language constructs”. I learn things from doing code reviews all the time, and I like letting my coworkers know that I feel like I’ve gotten better at my job as a result of reviewing their contributions. I think it’d be a shame if I didn’t let them know.