Appreciation post: that 'rubber duck' debugging method actually saved my morning

I was stuck on a Python script that kept throwing a weird index error for like 45 minutes. I tried reading the code over and over but my brain just kept seeing what I expected to see. Finally I grabbed a little toy duck off my desk and explained each line out loud to it. Halfway through saying 'and then this variable gets... wait a sec' I spotted the typo where I used the wrong list index. Has anyone else had this silly trick actually work for them or am I just weird?

2 comments

2 Comments

emma68418d ago

I once spent two hours explaining a bug to my cat before I realized my variable name had a typo in it... now she's my official code reviewer.

-1

spencer_wood18d ago

Cats don't even understand bugs, that's just wasting your time for internet points.