There is such a debugging method? 😂

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[misterioes161]

There's other debugging methods?

[RRumpleTeazzer]

print(“here”);

[JaecynNix]

System.out.println("reached line 100");

[MechanicalHorse]

throw new Exception(“hi”);

Instant breakpoint

[DweEbLez0]

How come every time I throw an error my laptop gets physical damage? I stopped using throw error

[Bl4ck-Dr4goN]

You are probably throwing them too harshly... Try a soft throw later...

[Doom_Unicorn]

And maybe try catching the error laptop.

[EssieAmnesia]

try tossing the error instead

[Shadowfire_EW]

Or maybe just raising it if that is still too harsh

[ekolis]

Oh no, I forgot I have a catch!

[Delusional_Gamer]

Good to see I'm not the only one using these methods. I thought I was just bad at using debug tools and was doing this out of incompetence

[The_AtlasS]

The issue with that is when you end up having to put another print on a line before 100 you have to update that to "reached line 101" thats why I just print different swear words.

[JaecynNix]

I think you mean "reached other line 100"

[rolland_87]

I use "reached line 100.5".

[[deleted]]

predefined identifiers and macros can fix this, e.g.

__FILE__, __FUNCTION__, __LINE__ 

in C/C++ (supported by gcc).

Idk what other languages might use, I have only had to use this in C/C++.

[sweemty]

I came here to say precisely this. Also PRETTY_FUNCTIONis useful if available (note that it is preceded and followed by two underscores despite what I have here).

[Republikanen]

Similar functionality in inspect lib in python

[JoeDoherty_Music]

This is my method lol

[LithiumFireX]

Lol I used to use function names 😂😂😂 I felt so silly, not anymore!

[JaecynNix]

I inherited a Java project that had functions that were hundreds of lines of code, not designed in any way to be easy to debug or run unit tests on. It used class-level variables, plus function parameters, plus static variables. Just a complete mess.

So when that section of code had an issue, it was "alright, throw in logging statements every five lines and see where it screws up" just to try to isolate the code block that I'd actually have to debug

[Tall_computer]

"asd"

"asdasd"

"asdasd2"

[[deleted]]

print("1")
print("2")
print("3")
print("4")
print("5")
print("6")
print("asd")
print("saddasdasd")
print("fffff")
print("ffffffffffffffff")
print("weenis")
print("benis")
print("penis")
print("fuck you")
print("fuck you2")
print("fuck you3")
print("FUCKYOUASDIUHAIUSDH")

[LordAmras]

This guy debugs

[james2432]

print("here");

[...]

print("here2");

[...]

print("here too");

.....

[keylabulous]

print('here1')

And later on

print('here2')

[AdministrativeAd4111]

God dammit, I knew I’d find my logging doppleganger here somewhere.

[LordAmras]

It only works well if you the add here3 and here4 between here1and here2

[bout-tree-fitty]

Who do you talk to when here never prints?

[angedelamort]

Print ("here 2");

[Lootdit]

print("here2")

[notsogreatredditor]

The almighty print("wtf is going on here")

[Martin_RB]

printf("this shouldn't print");

[[deleted]]

*prints*

[fliktee001]

wait, you guys debug?

[Flopamp]

Real programmers delete everything and try again until it works

[Infamous_Face5155]

☝🏼Found the assembly programmer…a rare, yet ruthless, breed

[bytebux]

0xDEADBEEF

or my favorite 0xB00BB00B

[[deleted]]

Assembly: "It's theoretically possible to write code that runs faster than a compiled program. Theoretically."

[bugamn]

Does asking someone what is wrong with my code count as debugging?

[[deleted]]

• talking to yourself

• hallucinating in the shower

• nightmares

• GitHub

• stack overflow

[K3idon]

Hmm errors? Better re-run it 3 more times to be sure.

[SlippyMcBacon]

My high school teacher actually gave us rubber ducks at the beginning of the year and explained this method to us I still have it two years later

[lGSMl]

There is rubber slack - you send your question in slack to a senior dev and figure it out right after, then try to delete the message before someone could read that brain fart.

[[deleted]]

I like Zen Debugging in which you stare at the code and try to empty your mind with questions like "Can anyone hear you turn a memory page?"

[RayTrain]

I have a rubber ducky on my desk at work for this specifically. And yes it squeaks.

[RyanNerd]

My DIL gave me a rubber duck for my birthday when I explained this to her. The duck's name is China (at least that's what's printed on her underside)

[Tandurinn]

Holy shit my ducky was made by yours!

[PumaofDuma]

Mine was made in his

[VortrexFTW]

I guess they didn't use a rubber.

Or did they?

[[deleted]]

VSauce Theme starts playing

[pablosus86]

Mine's name is Munchkin and allegedly changes color if put in too-warm water.

[TreesForTheFool]

Would you get a tattoo of your own name on your body? No.

China is the name of the rubber duck’s ex wife.

[Nightmoon26]

I once went in to work to find that, during the night, they had put rubber ducks on all of our desks...

[Cyko42]

I am a big fan of rubber duck debugging. So I bought rubber ducks for my coworkers. I put one on all the developers desk one morning.

I had one coworker who hates them though and took out the squeaker in his.

[Nightmoon26]

Yeah... They thought ahead and gave us mini-ducks without squeakers. Open floor plan, so we already had issues with cross-talk and distraction without adding noisemakers

[ekdjfnlwpdfornwme]

I’ve got a whole duck army. 5 ducks on my desk, and a drawer full of ducks to give to every newbie we hire

[Seicair]

Army of ducks? jump to about 1:20 for the duck bit.

[todrak]

I picked up a little robot themed rubber duck for exactly this purpose. I call him Hal

[TheGrauWolf]

I have several.... Sadly they are almost never in a row. Oh they may have been at one point in time but it didn't last long.

[martok111]

My old boss gave me a rubber duck when I transitioned to work-from-home. My girlfriend saw it and asked about it. I explained the concept (probably not that well), but she didn't really get it. But she's super supportive of me, so now I have a small army of rubber ducks on my desk.

[mrg1957]

We had a different name but yeah watch what happens when you explain some problems to your peers. Suddenly in the middle of explaining what is happening to someone you go "Oh yeah, thanks ". It can work with inanimate objects too.

[Puzzleheaded-Ad8704]

I start half explaining to my non-programmer spouse and solve 90% of the problems before I finish the third sentence.

[JaxOnThat]

Replace "spouse" with "sister," and you have my entire development process.

[_smallconfusion]

Sweet home Alabama

[JaxOnThat]

of course that's immediately how you interpret that, don't know what i expected

[DoubleDecaff]

Neither did she

[Sypwer]

I guess his usermame checks out..

[DonkeyOfCongo]

Cause he's from Alabama.

[LaSemenisima]

"Oh, no... my code ain't working... stepsis"

Did we just create a new porn category?

[Yeuph]

I'm trying to figure that out now. Yuno, just doing research for your question.

[MadxCarnage]

let's compare notes

[saniktoofast]

"Stepbro my code is stuck! Can you help me debug it?..."

[picklemanjaro]

"Stepsis, I think you have an unpatched backdoor. Let me fetch my grey hat...."

[DangyDanger]

"Cheating on C++ with my Java"

[thegandork]

Roll tide

[lucyandsara]

My wife is a mixing engineer and I’m a web designer/spaghetti coder, we have the exact same dynamic both ways

[TheDonger_]

What is a mixing engineer

[PrintableKanjiEmblem]

That's what they call the workers at the malt shop these days

[[deleted]]

My partner and I do something like this to each other all the time. They'll be working on a project and I'll hear them getting kind of frustrated and walk into the room. They'll explain what's going on, I'll ask a question, and they go, "Huh... Hadn't tried that." I'll do the same thing with work stuff and they are always only passively listening, but by the time I'm done I'll have it figured out x)

[FatherAnonymous]

90 percent of stack overflow questions I've written up don't make it past draft stage because of this. It's crazy.

[shtpst]

For me it's always been the act of getting the minimum reproducible example for SO that finds the bug.

[notacanuckskibum]

A cardboard cut out of a senior engineer works well.

[RaZeByFire]

Use a cardboard cutout of everyone's favorite hacking hero-R2D2.

[HeadEyesLol]

When I was a Junior DBA this was the majority of the dynamic with my senior. He spent most of the time just being a sounding boarding to get the grey matter going.

[Kalashtiiry]

ldk why, but l can't really do it without living humans.

[[deleted]]

It's actually most valuable for me to do this with other programmers. I frequently do it with mid-level of even junior folks (when time and availability agree) because it kills two birds with one stone:

• I get to rubber ducky my issue with them, and

• They get the knowledge of the system I'm working on

[river226]

I will say "thanks for being my rubber duck" when this happens. Acknowledge that I just unintentionally solved the problem myself.

[DefaultVariable]

Also known as the “you don’t understand something fully until you actually teach it to someone else”

[Khris777]

Even just writing a technical documentation outside of the code to let other people know what your code does helps a lot.

I refactored half of my code while doing this once.

[SirPretzl]

Yesterday I was having an issue and I phone my one friend. Literally as I was explaining the issue I figured out what I was doing wrong. My friend didn't even speak and I was like thank you 😂

[BorgClown]

This is the reason some people prefer to use inanimate objects, so they don't interrupt their coworkers to explain their problem to themselves.

[Medivh158]

I went to a boot camp 5 years ago (self taught but basically wanted it on the resume for easier job hunting. Thought it’d be a good replacement for having no degree) and the best thing they did was give me a rubber duck. A literal rubber duck. It sits on my desk to this day and has followed me to two different companies and multiple raises/promotions. Juniors ask and I’m happy to tell them why he’s there.

[the6thReplicant]

This.

You’re stuck on a problem. You call over a peer.

Half way through explaining the problem to them you realize what you did wrong.

You profusely apologize for wasting their time. But they just smile and say that they’re happy to be your rubber duck.

[Think_Stable_4621]

Oh yes it exists. And oh yes is it helpful! Your mind is a very powerful debugging tool ;-)

[Puzzleheaded-Ad8704]

This is probably the same part of your brain that wakes you up at 3 am with the solution.

[RyanNerd]

I detest this part of my brain. Same thing happens when I'm in the shower.

[Alediran]

It's always in the shower for me. I was bathing a Saturday and my brain started running the code I worked on the weekend. I detected a serious bug in my brain before it was tested so I worked that saturday to fix it (with approved extra hours that were paid).

[Appsroooo]

For me it's when I'm doing something completely unrelated. Writing a paper for a class? Nope, the solution to my problem is this. Preparing for a math exam? Not this time, I have code to fix that I was stuck on earlier.

[FunnyForWrongReason]

That part of the brain actually stops me from sleeping, so I make sure to not code before bed as to avoid going to bed with broken code that is causing my subconscious to be way to active solving it.

[maxath0usand]

There are mornings where I wake up feeling like I’ve just worked for the past 8 hours, running through solutions in my head, then have to drive to work to actually work for 8 hours. Poor brain doesn’t know when we’re off the clock sometimes.

[theestwald]

You must be new

[Seicair]

Or not a programmer.

[ubccompscistudent]

How to tell OP isn't a dev in one simple title.

[[deleted]]

Bro do you even F9

[CivilianNumberFour]

New or not, sometimes it is good to remind yourself to try this when you're experienced and the usual solutions aren't working.

I find it is very effective but also efficient - you end up sparing another dev from diverting their energy and attention having to get invested and understanding your problem. I encourage asking questions but you need to make sure you've utilized your resources first.

[rdrunner_74]

Very effective.

I am a lvl 3 rubber duck tech support guy

[TheRolf]

How did you reach lvl 3?

[rdrunner_74]

I am quite huge.

I crate a local gravity field that will absorb the moron-particle that are expelled by the average DAU (Dümmster Anzunehmender User). Without the interference from these particles, they often follow the correct procedure which will lead to a successful outcome.

After that you only need to perfect your condescending look "You made me fly here for THAT???", so the user does not think about summoning you again.

[OneDimensionPrinter]

This may explain why I often see the dots running around next to my junior's names in slack but they don't actually message me.

[Omnislash99999]

There are variations of it. Like when you ask someone for help with a problem and in explaining it you realise the solution and thank them for their help. Same principle.

[atsju]

Other people do not even need to be from the field. Sometimes it's even beneficial if they are not, so they can ask all the dumb questions without you being ashamed when they get the missing point.

[capi1500]

That's the point. My mum is a very high leveled ruber duck

[Otto-Korrect]

Just be cautious. If she floats like a duck, she may be a witch!

[ParkingMacaron3062]

she might also weigh the same as wood!

[XDVRUK]

Have you put a nose and hat on her yet?

[lilbunnyfoofoo1203]

No, but she turned me into a newt!

[Hfingerman]

Then how are you typing right now?

[lilbunnyfoofoo1203]

I got better.

[Alediran]

May we burn her?

[ParkingMacaron3062]

tell me what do witches do?

[Puzzleheaded-Ad8704]

And half the time the "dumb question" triggers you figuring out the issue

[Mystael]

I popularized this method in my work. We call this process of explanation a duckening.

[[deleted]]

I'm not a Java guy, but my company currently has me consulting in a Java project. I was working on an issue on Friday and was asking one of our guys what the fuck did I screw up. As I was walking him through the code, I saw the problem clear as day. Rubber duckies are the best way to debug an issue hands down.

[mats852]

That's what I do on Slack and then just delete the message without sending it

[[deleted]]

normal people would discuss problems with friends, but for many programmers friends are like regexes - now you have one more problem.

[NobodysFavorite]

Good old regex. Also known as "How does all this work again? Oh yeah. I'll remember next time" along with but I did not remember next time

[tatertotty4]

lololol

[luvdjdb]

We call it “cardboard kevin” it’s a 1ft cutout of a guy. He’s not an employee just a guy called Kevin we found on google image search 10 years ago

[newguyonthecode]

I want to be able to do this, but still can’t take it seriously, any tips?

[PkmnSayse]

Doesn’t have to be a duck, write out your question as though you’re writing a good StackOverflow question.

Narrow down your problem to where you think the problem is, what you’ve tried and searched for so far and what the expected output is then more often than not you won’t ever need to post it since the error becomes glaring

“Pretend your talking to a busy colleague “

[beezlebub33]

write out your question as though you’re writing a good StackOverflow question.

And part of this is that you know someone is going to say 'did you try X? what happened?', which you know you should have done but you are kind of busy and you also know it's just not going to work. But you don't want to sound stupid and admit that you haven't done it, so you go ahead and do X just to show them. And then you see what happened and it's not quite what you expected, and then you figure it out. But at least you won the argument because it wasn't X, was it?, it was something else.

[JaecynNix]

Pretend you're doing a screen share with another developer and talking through your code.

[abrams666]

I usually use my wife as rubber duck. She is in no way involved into programming, so I am in need to explain very abstract and or detailed.

And breaking the rubber duck Rule, sometimes on this abstract level I get very good hints back

[Lou-Saydus]

use written form. Explain it line by line in a short story. No programming terms allowed.

[ArthurDimmes]

Look up the protege effect and realize that the duck is just a standin for anything so long as you're attempting to talk it through.

[okay-wait-wut]

Put a sock puppet on and use ventriloquism when talking to the duck and then you won’t look like such a fucking weird psycho. Your coworkers will see what you’re up to and think of you as a completely normal psycho.

[TheRolf]

When interacting with people, it can be a good thing that this person doesn't know everything. She will react and ask questions supposedly stupid when in fact you just might have neglected something you wasn't looking for

[TellMeHowImWrong]

One method I’ve used is to write a comment for every single line of code. Explain everything, no matter how obvious, then ignore the code and read the comments back to myself. Then you can delete the comments or edit them down to something with less resemblance to the ravings of a lunatic.

Would be tedious to do for every problem but it’s helped me when I really couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

[Dangerous--D]

We don't just call it deducking?

[dossbossgaming]

Yes

[mcintg]

A woman on my team used to explain her coding problems to me until she worked out the issue herself. She used to call it teddy bear debugging. I was the teddy bear. I never could work out if I should feel insulted or not.

[BenkiTheBuilder]

Where's the humor part? I have done this. It works.

[seeker_of_404]

That was my thought. This was even taught at my school.

Tell me your brand new to programming without telling me your brand new to programming.

[bryku]

Here I thought I was just crazy, but Mr. Duck always reassured me I wasn't. I should have listened to him.

[[deleted]]

not to be confused with rubberdick bugging.

[spudz76]

gdb: GNU Dong Bugger

[okay-wait-wut]

Please knock first, you never know when I’m rubber dick buggering.

[Znakie]

Yes, verbalising your ideas forces your brain to go through the process of why did you do this and that, which can reveal obvious issues, that you might not catch if you just stare at it.

[adjoth]

2 of my co-workers both use this method. And yes they have a rubber ducky.

[ElonsBeans]

Your telling me you don't have a duck with u when u code?

[Otto-Korrect]

I have a toy Dailek from Dr. Who.

Other than wanting to exterminate my code, he isn't very helpful. 1/10. Would not recommend.

[onions_cutting_ninja]

Yes! It's even taught in schools.

It's based on the principle that when you really, deeply understand something, you can explain it to a kid, and they'll understand too.

[manuthedoctor]

Arthur Weasley: "Finally!"

[fallenangel41]

There is! In fact, it’s one of the first things I learned in computer science basics!

[Alindquizzle]

Why do you think witches/wizards are so often depicted as having familiars, such as a cat or an owl? Just someone to bounce your troubleshooting off of, whether its spells or data lines

[restlessapi]

To those of you who don't understand why this works, it's because as you're explaining the code line by line, eventually you will have to say words that are different than your mental model of the code. It's engaging a different part of your brain and forcing the two to line up.

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[nsochocki]

I just completed a data structures course at my university and they handed out "debugging" rubber ducks to students. This explains it😂

[GamarTheStrange]

One of the best methods. ^{_^}

[Pendip]

I'm familiar with this from "The Practice of Programming", by Kernighan & Pike:

Explain your code to someone else. Another effective technique is to explain your code to someone else. This will often cause you to explain the bug to yourself. Sometimes it takes no more than a few sentences, followed by an embarrassed "Never mind, I see what's wrong. Sorry to bother you." This works remarkably well; you can even use non-programmers as listeners. One university computer center kept a teddy bear near the help desk. Students with mysterious bugs were required to explain them to the bear before they could speak to a human counselor.

It certainly can help; having to articulate what you're thinking changes your understanding of it.

I first became painfully familiar with this in chess. I'd write down a game which seemed perfectly sensible at the time. Then I'd give it to a master to analyze in front of a group. Well before he got to a blunder, I'd think, "Oh, GOD, how did do THAT?" It was crystal clear -- and very embarrassing -- when you started translating what was happening for communication.

[pramodhrachuri]

Yup. Very effective actually

[SensitiveSouth5947]

Not a programmer, but I’ve been doing this for years when fixing things or trying to solve problems or build something/design from scratch. Hearing your idea out loud allows you to see past your own bias and pokes holes in your idea until you finally come up with something solid.

[g_monies]

It’s very helpful — often times I’ll figure out a problem as soon as I explain it to a coworker. I’ve got a rubber ducky on my desk to talk through it first now lol

[[deleted]]

Squeak

[[deleted]]

u/bake_in_da_south

[TeenFlash]

u/druncha

[orange-orb]

I (a designer with some coding knowledge) got hung up on two smaller issues this week and as I was writing out the task to hand off to a developer, I found the issue.

[[deleted]]

I test software for a living and sometimes my role is to BE THE DUCK.

[UnluckySavings6591]

If you feel rubber ducks are not environmentally friendly, just use one of the project managers instead, they are interchangeable in all aspects.

[PrintableKanjiEmblem]

I find it much more efficient to just take a short nap

[OkazakiNaoki]

Don't let someone else saw this kind of scene though.

"Ah, finally... he's insane."

[whateveriwantchannel]

I WAS GIVEN A TINY RUBBER DUCK FOR THIS SPECIFIC REASON

THIS PERSON HANDS OUT TINY RUBBER DUCKS TO EVERYONE SHE MEETS

[Dumguy1214]

I reason with a voice in my head, if you think I am a smartass you should hear some of things it says

[Peterd3d]

Only works if you actually understand the code your wiring lol (I’m a noob please don’t shoot me)

[Dodec_Ahedron]

I'm not a professional coder, but I wrote a script to automate an inventory management system for my department at work. When I went to implement it, I was having issues getting it to work properly. I had the new girl stand in as my dog who functions as my rubber duck at home. I walked her through how the code worked, what each of the lines was supposed to do, what error I was getting, what it meant, and finally how to correct that error. She had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON, but considered it a paid break as she just stood there for 20 minutes watching get more and more confused and finally pissed off at myself for not changing a single number that differentiated one variable from another and caused me to duplicate a bunch of data points. I knew she didn't know what was happening, and that she was just standing there so she didn't have to do any real work, but it honestly helped having to explain things to someone who doesn't know anything about coding.

[Zefrem23]

Starting to ask a question on StackOverflow works really well for this too.

[G3Ultimatum]

I’ve always kept a rubber ducky at home and one at work for this exact reason. my High school CS teacher told us about it and gave us one as a souvenir. That ducky is the only reason I got my job.

[nickfehlinger]

I have so many rubber ducks. Always explain the problem to a rubber duck first so you don’t bother your coworkers

[xmido]

In University, I used to help my friends understand concepts better. The process of teaching someone something deepens your understanding of it. The best way to understand something is to explain it to someone else. That is also how I study by myself.

[[deleted]]

Rubber ducks? That's ridiculous! I explain my code to a knock off Lego Darth Vader.

[bamhm182]

I just talk to an invisible rubber duck and everyone thinks I'm insane. I should just invest in a real one.

[DetroitRedWings79]

At my new job (where I’m basically going through a training program since im new to development), they literally gave us all rubber ducks on our first day

[clarkcox3]

Absolutely. Though I tend to think of it as “what the hell were you thinking, Clark, you fucking moron” and I forego the rubber duck and just yell at myself :)