this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025
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[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (6 children)

What is the rubber duck used for? Is it like the seashells in Demolition Man?

[–] Malix@sopuli.xyz 47 points 3 days ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

tldr; basically you explain your buggy code to the duck, and when you explain it, you suddenly realize what the issue is.

any inanimate or even imaginary object works, but rubber duck is the classic option.

[–] gnutrino@programming.dev 24 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I find my dog works well too, she's a great listener.

[–] Malix@sopuli.xyz 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Best little bugger

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 3 points 3 days ago

I call it the Labrador method.

[–] gloog@fedia.io 19 points 3 days ago

Have you ever been stuck on a problem (school, work, personal, whatever) and as soon as you go to ask someone for help, you start explaining the problem and figure it out? You basically use the duck for that - explain the problem out loud to "someone else" and sometimes you'll see what you were missing.