“I’m not sure if I understand the whole idea but could you explain what this method does?” misdirects by suggesting the reviewer thinks they need education, rather than that the reviewer thinks the code can be clearer.
Don't make teachers the punching bag for bad programmer code review. Programmers get paid 3-4x more, so if teachers can figure it out, then why can't programmers?
I mean going through engineering school and rigorous STEM degrees I can say that stuff is baked into the formula. You’re derided and dogged and gaslit from the onset.
Is it surprising these people graduate, become senior and perpetuate the mental unhealth?
No, instead you have your ego brutalized by spending half your youth (not to mention tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars) getting an undergraduate and master's degree and teaching certification...only to receive poverty wages, pay for your own supplies, be abused by students and parents and administrators and HN commenters alike...
Also, varies by country: the second world has "pedagogical universities/colleges" which are focused on producing school-level teachers in every subject taught in the schools — maths, chemistry, CS, you name it... and usually they have the lowest requirements compared to any other universities, so people apply there for a "last resort higher education" so to speak.
And then some people are bright enough to do well there, and some are not quite, and after graduation the smarter ones generally manage to find a better job than to be a school teacher while the dumber ones, well, they apply to schools to teach. And they get employed because schools almost always lack teachers. Yay...
I imagine things are better in the first world.
Meanwhile, teaching at code review means that student gets exercise, donit without guidance and then gets list of everything that was wrong with it. And then gets told that wherever his opinion preference differs from the reviewers one, he is wrong too.
No good teacher does that.