A user's guide for the people API

What I've discovered to be very important and what I would recommend putting great emphasis on in communication: You must make the distinction clear between treating a person('s feelings) and treating a technical subject. The former is the "soft" part. It's subjective, non-linear, inexact and indisputable. The latter is objective, measurable and rightfully disputable. People tend to dispute the former while treating it as the latter, which is very dangerous and will lead to division and resource waste without any quantifiable outcome.

It is important to communicate this distinction. Be strict in your own technical expressions (while being lenient in accepting other's incoherent use of technical expressions as much as possible)! But be amicable to the person you are disputing with and express that (so they don't fall into the trap of confusing your strictness on the matter with rudeness)! Use your leniency to signal understanding, that people are not easily willing to give up on their wrong ideas, largely because they already heavily invested in it. One of the hardest lessons to learn as a programmer is that most code is written for the trash bin.

Lastly, when you're annoyed with somebody: Don't answer! (First, you are just departing the technical discussion for a personal one, which nobody, including you, can win. Second, nobody wants to read your whining.)