Saying “good attempt” is just a nice platitude. It doesn’t actually mean that what you’ve done is good, especially if you follow it up with (effectively) “but you’ve got to do it all again”. I think most people understand that.
It’s not guaranteed that it’s interpreted as a platitude by the person it’s directed at, and when the mismatch between the task and the work done is big enough to make it obviously a platitude, it’s just patronising, and risks being more insulting than not saying it at all.
Saying “good attempt” is just a nice platitude. It doesn’t actually mean that what you’ve done is good, especially if you follow it up with (effectively) “but you’ve got to do it all again”. I think most people understand that.
It’s not guaranteed that it’s interpreted as a platitude by the person it’s directed at, and when the mismatch between the task and the work done is big enough to make it obviously a platitude, it’s just patronising, and risks being more insulting than not saying it at all.