What is a debug duck?

Hello and welcome to my blog. Refer to me as the debug ducker. The purpose of this blog is to detail my computer science journey and maybe some other stuff if possible. As of now, I am a going into senior year and ready to graduating so I’ll be documenting tons of stuff.

Now my name. It sounds silly right, but the name is based on a code debugging technique that is an coding industry practice.

The basics are that you’ll need a rubber duck or anything inanimate, and when you run into a code problem you need to debug try explaining what the code does to your duck, tell it what programs you’re running within the code, and the purpose of the code. The idea is that when you explain and go over the code with the duck, it’s supposed to help you catch what’s wrong as you explain it.

I used to do this back in high school and found it helpful. I remember my other peers doing the same thing, and they found it helpful as well. Though I haven’t used it as I progress my programming career, the technique stuck with me. Mostly because it sounds silly talking to a rubber duck but don’t knock it till you try it. So whenever you encounter a coding problem, talk to a rubber duck or any inanimate object about it and see if you can catch any errors.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Debug Duck by debugducker and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.