[notepad0x90]

I think you misunderstood me, and I'm sorry to hear you feel that way. In my opinion your response is not helpful to having a constructive discussion. Since you insulted me directly, I will not discuss the details of this topic with you.

[amy214]

Your core point isn't wrong. If someone identifies a business-ending bug before it causes problems - absolutely you want to let the coder know how gnarly that is. I speak for myself, perhaps others, when it's this point that people don't like:

>In other words, you need people to feel very bad about what they've done, not as an attack on their personality, character or even competence but to help them understand the severity of the situation.

So, yes, clearly communicate the bug is existential in nature, but make it "OUR" bug, not "YOUR" bug, that we will fix it together, express great trust and confidence in the person despite this. What you get out of that is - yes, actually you would be making them feel bad, in this case the guilt of disappointing someone who believes in them (actually probably they would feel worse here than a direct "nothing personal" attack), and at the same time preserving and even enhancing the trust and loyalty of your relationship. Directly making them feel horrible by chewing them out has the same effect, but at the cost of burning your relationship, trust, motivation, etc. Difference between "safe relationship" and "unsafe relationship"

[notepad0x90]

I agree with everything you said. I think it's also important to let them know that you wouldn't be having that conversation with them if you didn't trust them to learn from the experience. I don't support or promote chewing out, berating, or being abusive to someone in any context. I think that's what the parent commenter misunderstood.

The main thing I learned from this thread is to avoid making a person feel bad in the sense that they are alone in it or somehow they are incompetent and irresponsible. A lot of times, I lead with one of my great screw-ups just so they know I'm not talking down to them. it's more of a "screw ups happen, I've screwed up. and now so have you, we can't make mistakes like this, it was really bad" type of a discussion.