It provided me with a really good solution to my problems:<p>Can you describe the problem in a paragraph? Please use small sentences, I'm only a duck.<p>> My colleagues are dumb!<p>>> Is your colleagues the thing that has the problem?<p>> yes<p>>> Can you explain what your colleagues does?<p>> They do very very dumb things.<p>>> Do you fully understand how it does what it does? Could you split your colleagues into smaller chunks?<p>> split them into chunks? Cheers duck, I think I have it now! <i>grabs axe</i>
I felt like I was getting so close...<p>---
>Can you describe the problem in a paragraph? Please use small sentences, I'm only a duck.<p>I must know the meaning of life<p>>Is your meaning of life the thing that has the problem?<p>Yes<p>>Can you explain what your meaning of life does?<p>It provides a reason for one's existence.<p>>So does it do just one thing? Any chance that your meaning of life, or parts of it, can be isolated and test seperately?<p>Perhaps if we knew all of or part of the answer, each part could be tested.<p>>What parts of your meaning of life are you certain work, and where are your 'unknowns'?<p>Well many people find meaning in their relationships, work, or education. None of these are universal though.<p>>Is your meaning of life being compiled? Can you restart the compiler?<p>The universe cannot be restarted or recompiled.<p>>Is something similar to your meaning of life being used elsewhere? Could common elements be shared?<p>Well we know of many physical laws. Perhaps those laws can be adapted in some way.<p>>How is your meaning of life modified?<p>We do not know if it is constant or ephemeral because we do not know the answer.<p>>Could your meaning of life, or variables within it, be somehow overwritten or overridden?<p>Perhaps they could by a supreme being.<p>>Is everything in your meaning of life your code? Could you replace uncertainties with debugging statements?<p>We do not know how to overwrite the code of the universe.<p>>Why do you need your meaning of life?<p>To give life direction<p>>Do you fully understand how it does what it does? Could you split your meaning of life into smaller chunks?<p>It doesn't appear to solve the problem.<p>>Sorry, my super-duck-powers have failed. Have you tried google or stack overflow?
I have a pet theory as to why rubberducking works. Basically I think it uses some additional brain machinery to check the metadata on our facts - i.e. how reliable are each of the 'facts' we are using in our reasoning.<p>I tried to go into it in more detail here: <a href="http://www.berthels.co.uk/2013/03/29/how-do-you-know-what-you-know/" rel="nofollow">http://www.berthels.co.uk/2013/03/29/how-do-you-know-what-yo...</a>
Tried to make something like this a while ago[1] but the Eliza idea is a good one. Must be our agricultural East Anglian sense of humour. Wonder how many other farmyard animals could be turned into software as a service?<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7720153" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7720153</a>
This is great! Would you prefer to have the domain RubberDuckers.com for this project?<p>My biz partner and I had a similar idea but never launched it! We still have the domain though, and you are welcome to it. I'm so glad that you made this!
It really seemed like I was getting somewhere, but then it failed. Oh well.<p><a href="http://i.imgur.com/TJiUdWT.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/TJiUdWT.png</a>
My attempt at ducking the inability to eat a pizza.[1]<p>[1]<a href="https://mediacru.sh/9MluzWBYV3f3" rel="nofollow">https://mediacru.sh/9MluzWBYV3f3</a>
More info here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging</a>
Source at <a href="https://github.com/atleastimtrying/rubber_duck" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/atleastimtrying/rubber_duck</a>