The ducky the dev uses is the backbone for the software they create. what makes a truly cracked software engineer and one that is ordinary is not based off of any development experience, or any discipline or ingineuity but rather the duckie that they use to debug.

I have never used a rubber duckie before, what I had instead was a 3d printed ferret. The ferret was pretty bad, he'd keep falling over and dislocate their joints. Everytime i'd ask him how to center a div, he'd buckle and crumble under the weight of the task. Obviously, this is the reason why all my code sucks.

Yesterday, well like 2 weeks ago (I meant to get this post earlier!), while cleaning my desks I saw a glint of gold in the corner of my eye. It is a rubber duck! Here he is:

This blogpost is a compilation of some stuff u can say to this duck:

Worst Things to Say

Can you help me?

Dont ask to ask! unless you want to be extraordinarily polite

How would you solve this

I put this on here because everytime I ask this, I try imagining what the duck would say, but nothing comes to mind and I end up getting sidetracked. The fact is im using the duck to diagnose the issue, not to solve it but to gain a beter understanding of the issue.

Can you speak? can you answer me? what exactly do you want to say? what do you want to say? Youre terrifying! the way you look at me with those vacant eyes, speak god damn it

The reason why this is a suboptimal question is because it is too open-ended. obviously you want to keep your questions largely open however this one remains out of scope entirely and does not focus on the problem at hand. The question must be on task, and better yet a question as to if a potential solution is feasable or not.

I dont want to program anymore, I wanna do something else, maybe play games or something

Saying this to the ducky is harmful, insulting and completely undermines their work. They're here for you working 24/7 for YOU!

You are your own person! you can do anything you want! go out there explore the world! make and break things, go have fun!

rip

Dead air communication

One of the reasons why I prefer a debug duckie is because it does not talk back. For a brief period of time, I was using ELIZA to debug. ELIZA is plainly an replicator. Everything you say to her she repeats back to you. BUT! sometimes she says horrible things like 'Do you think about these thoughts often?', 'Does having these thoughts bother you?' and then the conversation gets all therapeutic - which I guess was the point. The ducky does not have a voice, but they have a personality. I believe my ducky is constantly pondering, not bored but just pondering and thinking and listening. They are the listener pretty much.

Optimal Ducky Usage

There is no process to talk to a duckie other than:

1. Explain the entire problem in layman's terms
2. Explain the code line-by-line
3. Brainstorm with the duck for a solution

The simplicity is its power, you need to have a freeform discussion with the duck, atleast that is how it is with me. The whole point of debugging is to tackle it with a creative approach, you must capture the right side of your mind for this.

Ok so thats all that I wanted to write. Im going to give this duck a random name, maybe quack1277. probably not, il think about the name later. is it messed up to name these things? wjhat if they already had a name before and you are taking away an essential part of their identity? is it fucked to name a entity after the sound it makes. I make the guh sound alot should that be my name? alot to think about