My take from personal experience:
Removing the "just" obviously makes it less condescending:
=> Why didn't you use sshd?
Removing the "you" could make it less personal:
=> Why was sshd not used here?
Removing the past-tense makes it more forward looking (the past can't be changed, but people often defend their past decisions especially because they are unchangeable, the future however is less threatening):
=> Could sshd be used here?
And to further open it up to criticism and add humility (which is important, since sometimes the obvious standard solution doesn't scale/work/apply to the use case):
=> Would there be any tradeoffs using sshd here?
This IMHO is the least-threatening and not too elaborate way to formulate this sentence.
But one thing can make this even less threatening. Don't write in on the code review for everybody to see, tell it to the person 1:1 in private and give them a chance to look good to their peers. The old adage "Praise in public, criticize in private" is still one of the most important things IMHO when relaying criticism.
Removing the "just" obviously makes it less condescending:
=> Why didn't you use sshd?
Removing the "you" could make it less personal:
=> Why was sshd not used here?
Removing the past-tense makes it more forward looking (the past can't be changed, but people often defend their past decisions especially because they are unchangeable, the future however is less threatening):
=> Could sshd be used here?
And to further open it up to criticism and add humility (which is important, since sometimes the obvious standard solution doesn't scale/work/apply to the use case):
=> Would there be any tradeoffs using sshd here?
This IMHO is the least-threatening and not too elaborate way to formulate this sentence.
But one thing can make this even less threatening. Don't write in on the code review for everybody to see, tell it to the person 1:1 in private and give them a chance to look good to their peers. The old adage "Praise in public, criticize in private" is still one of the most important things IMHO when relaying criticism.