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January 18, 2010 - just_a_day
Don't have to be a Programmer to Use the Rubber Duck
This is an old post that I was reminded of the other day. You can apply it to any project or decision you make in your life. Here's the original as posted in 2002 on the University of Canterbury Linux Users Group board:
> There is an entire development methodology (whose name escapes me at the moment) that makes use of that very phenomenon.
We called it the Rubber Duck method of debugging. It goes like this:
1) Beg, borrow, steal, buy, fabricate or otherwise obtain a rubber duck (bathtub variety)
2) Place rubber duck on desk and inform it you are just going to go over some code with it, if that's all right.
3) Explain to the duck what your code is supposed to do, and then go into detail and explain things line by line
4) At some point you will tell the duck what you are doing next and then realise that that is not in fact what you are actually doing. The duck will sit there serenely, happy in the knowledge that it has helped you on your way.
Works every time. Actually, if you don't have a rubber duck you could at a pinch ask a fellow programmer or engineer to sit in.
Andy
Posted by marksusan1 at January 18, 2010 5:08 AM | 