This "rubber duck" strategy is great for debugging too. One person plays the rub... | Hacker News

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		andrewljohnson on March 26, 2010 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Ask HN: How do you solve hard problems if you can'... This "rubber duck" strategy is great for debugging too. One person plays the rubber duck and sits there and says (at most) "uhuh, uhuh" while the programmer with the bug explains the problem. Nine times out of 10, the bugged programmer will do a facepalm and fix the bug immediately while explaining the problem. You actually don't need a person at all for this, or a rubber duck... just the willingness to explain your bug aloud to yourself when you have one.

jacquesm on March 26, 2010 [–]

That's a really funny name for it. I don't think I'll alert my favorite 'victims' to it though, it might backfire :)

andrewljohnson on March 27, 2010 | [–]

Yeah, it amused and educated me when I first read about it. Not my term: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rubber+duck+program...

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