If you’ve ever been to an IT trade show, convention or seminar, you may have noticed that rubber ducks seem to be an oddly popular giveaway. Why?
So the story goes, one day a programmer ran into a brick wall while coding something. He went over to a co-worker’s desk to ask for help. The co-worker asked him to explain what he was trying to do generally, then explain how he was trying to accomplish this in code. While explaining the problem, the first coder figured out what the problem was.
A few days later the coder hit a brick wall again, explained the issue to his co-worker, and once again figured out the problem while explaining it.
A few days after that, the coder had ANOTHER problem, but this time when he approached his office buddy, the co-worker handed him a rubber duck: “Look, I’m busy. You don’t need me to help you; just explain it to the duck instead”. He felt like a fool, but did it anyway, and once again by explaining the problem and how he was trying to code it, he figured out what the issue was.
And thus, “rubber duck debugging” was born. Coders all over the planet explain their problems to inanimate objects as a means of troubleshooting, although the rubber duck remains the unofficial symbol and namesake of the process:
Great post, Jim! I can definitely relate!