Comment by dijksterhuis

without knowing the people involved, or any further nuance/context -- i had a PhD supervisor like this. he was always looking for holes. always disliked the way i was proposing something. always looking to find the thing that's wrong. the way to deal with him was to have thorough answers to as many questions he might ask before he asks them. learning to predict his questions was the real training for my PhD.

it taught me to show my working, as if i were in math class. which meant fully writing things up before meeting with him.

> how the reviewer would prefer to design it

sounds like they're trying to find holes. dunno if you do this already, but if not, try to fill the holes beforehand with conclusive and extensive write up (show the working). maybe ask them before coding how they would design X and then dedicate a section of the write up to why X cannot or was not designed that way.

answer their questions before they have a chance to ask the questions.