The desk sat beside the door, right across the sofa. The laptop screen reflected on the glossy wood surface. And there I was, back arched like a shrimp, watching Harvard’s own Professor David J. Malan teach Computer Science.
“One of the debugging techniques you will use during this course to debug your code is called rubber duck debugging, where you can talk to an inanimate object (or yourself) to help think through your code and why it is not working as intended… When you are having challenges with your code, consider how speaking out loud to, quite literally, a rubber duck about the code problem…” he said.
I’ve been learning computer programming since I was 11, but this was my first time hearing about Rubber Duck debugging. The concept appeared strange at first, but it proved to be helpful later on.
Some days go by, and I run into a stubborn error while coding. My first instinct was to use ChatGPT, but then I remembered what Professor Malan said. So, I opened a new tab, searched “rubber duck”, and downloaded the first image I saw. I opened it up, already staring and wondering how it could help me, but that didn’t last long.
3 minutes later, I’m talking to a .jpeg image about the error. Anyone who walked in on me would’ve thought I’d gone mad, but I kept talking to Robert (that’s what I named him) until I caught the issue.
A huge grin spread across my face. It felt like getting the popular girl in high school to date you (Well, that never happened)
Become a Medium member 2 years have gone by, and I still use the rubber duck technique. Unfortunately, not with Robert anymore (RIP. Deleted him by mistake), but by talking to inanimate objects, and it sure damn works.
But why does it?
Having to verbalize what you’re doing forces you to stop and organize your thoughts, whereas just doing it barely leaves you any room for auditing your thought process.
When you force yourself to say it out loud, the roadblocks become more obvious. And it doesn’t matter what you’re doing.
You could be writing a blog, learning a new skill, or having a hard day. Slow down, find your rubber duck, and have a conversation.
You may appear mentally ill to others, but it’s worth it.