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Often by trying to explain the precise thing that you don't understand, you will have a moment of zen. This. I often find that I run into a problem, try to so

Often by trying to explain the precise thing that you don't understand, you will have a moment of zen. This. I often find that I run into a problem, try to solve it on my own, then bring someone unfamiliar in to get a fresh set of eyes on it. It usually goes like this Me: "Hey, I honestly can't figure out why this is doing this particular thing, can you take a look? <start explaining problem here in detail> ...FUCK! Nevermind, I know exactly whats going on. Thanks for your help" Person I asked: "Huh?Uh sure? I can solve problems with my presence alone"

sigzero 16y ago
I cannot tell you how many time I have have posted a question to USENET, hit send, and then had an AHA! moment.
rglullis 16y ago
One of my professors in college would bring a small teddy-bear to the lab. Whenever one student wanted to ask a question, he would just put the teddy bear on top of the monitor, and you'd have to talk to the teddy bear first. It seemed ridiculous, but it worked wonders. Most of the time said professor didn't have to open his mouth. It was just a matter of organizing your thoughts in a coherent way.
bmelton 16y ago
One of my favorite troubleshooting techniques at the office is to have someone SHOW me the problem. Often, in just trying to show me how they're gettingn whatever error they're complaining about, they realize they're doing it wrong in the first place. Then I get to stamp something 'solved' on my task list, and everybody's happy.
nocman 16y ago
In the book "The Pragmatic Programmer" they refer to this as "rubber ducking". The origin of the term was from a particular programmer who kept a rubber duck sitting near his computer (I believe on his monitor, I don't have the book handy right now). When questioned about why the duck was there, he said that when he got stuck on a problem, he would explain the problem to the rubber duck (full well knowing that the duck was not going to respond :-D ). The purpose of having the duck was just to have a target to explain the problem to, knowing that the act of explaining the problem would often lead him to the solution. There's a wiki article about it here: http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubberDucking http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubberDucking

sigzero 16y ago

I cannot tell you how many time I have have posted a question to USENET, hit send, and then had an AHA! moment.

rglullis 16y ago

One of my professors in college would bring a small teddy-bear to the lab. Whenever one student wanted to ask a question, he would just put the teddy bear on top of the monitor, and you'd have to talk to the teddy bear first. It seemed ridiculous, but it worked wonders. Most of the time said professor didn't have to open his mouth. It was just a matter of organizing your thoughts in a coherent way.

bmelton 16y ago

One of my favorite troubleshooting techniques at the office is to have someone SHOW me the problem. Often, in just trying to show me how they're gettingn whatever error they're complaining about, they realize they're doing it wrong in the first place. Then I get to stamp something 'solved' on my task list, and everybody's happy.

nocman 16y ago

In the book "The Pragmatic Programmer" they refer to this as "rubber ducking". The origin of the term was from a particular programmer who kept a rubber duck sitting near his computer (I believe on his monitor, I don't have the book handy right now). When questioned about why the duck was there, he said that when he got stuck on a problem, he would explain the problem to the rubber duck (full well knowing that the duck was not going to respond :-D ). The purpose of having the duck was just to have a target to explain the problem to, knowing that the act of explaining the problem would often lead him to the solution. There's a wiki article about it here: http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubberDucking http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubberDucking