A blue rubberduck with an Australian flag and the text Australia printed on it, positioned on a white cup

  • Xariphon@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    My wife is the programmer.

    Instead of a rubber duck, I gave her a plush frog for her desk.

    To help her catch all the bugs.

  • CloverSi@lemmy.comfysnug.space
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    1 year ago

    I was using a nice firefighter duck named Cleo, but he was underperforming so he had to be let go. Now I have Rufus:

    I was afraid a mouse wouldn’t be able to do a duck’s job, but he threatened to sue so I had to give him a shot. Glad I did, he’s proven as capable as any duck I’ve known.

  • zer0@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I can’t post a picture of my wife, I wonder if she ever will understand it

  • emptyother@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I should probably post a picture of myself. I don’t have count on how many times people have asked me for help but figuring it out while explaining it to me. Or me to them probably just as often.

    • snaptastic@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      What if (bear with me here), you tried explaining the problem to a rubber duck instead of colleagues?

      • marco@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I’m a dev manager of a remote team: I would encourage my team to talk to each other over their favorite rubber animal anytime, if the opportunity is given.

        This facilitates both knowledge sharing and teamwork.

        • snaptastic@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Yes and I agree, but the post was about rubber ducks, the whole point of which is not discussing with a person (at least not at first).

    • cynar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Tiny rubber ducks are actually dirt cheap from china. Keep a few in your pocket/desk, and hand them out when it happens.

  • λλλ@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    Okay, this is the second thing I’ve seen about rubber duck debugging. What does this mean? Am I a bad developer?

    Edit: LFTL

    • cynar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      When working on complex tasks, it’s easy to get sucked into it and not see the wood for the trees. One of the best solutions is to talk it through with someone. Often, as you are explaining it, you will realise that it’s not doing what you just said, but something different. You also sometimes realise that your solid logic is far less logical than it seemed, inside your own head.

      Critically, none of these actually require the knowledge or interaction of the person you are talking to. Rather than explaining it to a colleague, and wasting their time, some people use an inanimate object. A rubber duck has become a common method. It’s small, easy to source, and can sit on top of a monitor etc, with a face to talk too. Other personified toys also work just as well, as do pets, babies, or life partners etc.

      Basically, it’s a method of breaking a bad cycle, by getting out of your own head, and so realise where you keep f*****g up.

  • ted@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Two of my coworkers got carried away and kept bringing in more and more ducks, creating “The Great Rubber Duck War”

    many many ducks on office desks