3 ms·

My version's far more embarrassing. I go to a real life colleague of mine because I couldn't figure it out for the life of me, and as I explain it to them, I co

My version's far more embarrassing. I go to a real life colleague of mine because I couldn't figure it out for the life of me, and as I explain it to them, I come to the answer myself in the middle of explaining it to them. So I succeed in wasting my colleagues time and making myself look like an idiot.

greenyoda 14y ago
If you try to explain the problem to your colleague in an e-mail instead of in person, you can avoid sending the e-mail if the answer comes to you in mid-explanation. I can't even count how many bugs I've solved this way.
- lloeki 14y ago
  Except a real person can ask questions, even naive ones, and still guide your mind towards the solution. The process is incredibly close to maieutics, with the "duck" playing Socrates.
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    No. Greenyoda is talking about the process where writing down just the initial description of the problem is sufficient to notice the solution. Happens to me all the time, and I also observe it happen to others. My more junior coworkers sometimes sent me IMs like this: Coworker: Hey enraged_camel, I'm having an issue, I was wondering if you can help It goes like this <description of the issue, followed by a 10-15 second pause> Actually I think I figured it out... Sometimes I read their problem description and don't respond for several minutes to allow them to have that internal conversation with themselves. And a lot of the time, it works.
r00fus 14y ago
This is called, in my experience, "throwing it against a backboard" (ie, basketball reference). It's incredibly useful - not everyone can explain things to a rubber duck but can usually explain a problem to a real person. Plus you get some more human interaction - which as a programmer, you probably need more than you are allowing yourself (or your coworker is).

3 ms·

My version's far more embarrassing. I go to a real life colleague of mine because I couldn't figure it out for the life of me, and as I explain it to them, I co

by dclowd9901 14y ago

greenyoda 14y ago
If you try to explain the problem to your colleague in an e-mail instead of in person, you can avoid sending the e-mail if the answer comes to you in mid-explanation. I can't even count how many bugs I've solved this way.
- lloeki 14y ago
  Except a real person can ask questions, even naive ones, and still guide your mind towards the solution. The process is incredibly close to maieutics, with the "duck" playing Socrates.
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    No. Greenyoda is talking about the process where writing down just the initial description of the problem is sufficient to notice the solution. Happens to me all the time, and I also observe it happen to others. My more junior coworkers sometimes sent me IMs like this: Coworker: Hey enraged_camel, I'm having an issue, I was wondering if you can help It goes like this <description of the issue, followed by a 10-15 second pause> Actually I think I figured it out... Sometimes I read their problem description and don't respond for several minutes to allow them to have that internal conversation with themselves. And a lot of the time, it works.
r00fus 14y ago
This is called, in my experience, "throwing it against a backboard" (ie, basketball reference). It's incredibly useful - not everyone can explain things to a rubber duck but can usually explain a problem to a real person. Plus you get some more human interaction - which as a programmer, you probably need more than you are allowing yourself (or your coworker is).