Kitten Night Farts

Source

For more posts like this, CLICK HERE to follow Ultrafacts

 Some of you are reblogging because you think its funny that programmers would talk to ducks. I’m reblogging because I think its funny picturing a programmer explaining their code, realizing what they did when they explain the bad code, then grabbing the strangling the duck while yelling “WHY WAS THE FIX THAT SIMPLE!? AM I GOING BLIND!”

AS A PROGRAMMER I CAN TELL YOU THAT THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU FUCKING DO WE HAD TO BAN THE DUCKS FROM MY CLASSES BECAUSE EVERYONE WOULD FLIP THE DUCK OR THROW IT AT A WALL OR SOMETHING WHEN THEY FIGURED OUT THE PROBLEM IN THEIR CODE

so that’s the function of a rubber duck

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I work at a startup and part of the onboarding package you get when you first start working here now includes a rubber duck. We also have a bigger version of the duck for the extra hard problems. Sometimes one duck doesn’t cut it and you need to borrow your neighbors to get more ducks on the problem. One time we couldn’t figure out why something wasn’t working right so we assembled the counsel of ducks and by the grace of the Duck Gods were we able to finally come to a solution. These ducks have saved many lives and should be respected for the heroes they are.

I use this for writing, actually. Explain what I’m doing and what I want to do and the different ways i can get to point B from A, as well as the different problems, amazingly working them out as I explain why I could or couldn’t the different things. I love the Rubber Duck theory.

Former programmer, can confirm. We didn’t have a duck in our office so our other programmer, who I shared a space with, used me as a duck proxy. (For the explaining, not the throwing.)

There was more than one day where I’d casually hear “Hey can you be a duck for a minute?”

I should try this next time I’m in the middle of a novel and the entire thing feels like it’s made of very fragile spaghetti.

If you are reading this, thank this woman. Her name is Grace Hopper, and she is one of the most under appreciated computer scientists ever. You think Gates and Jobs were cool? THIS WOMAN WORKED ON COMPUTERS WHEN THEY TOOK UP ROOMS. She invented the first compiler, which is a program that translates a computer language like Java or C++ into machine code, called assembly, that can be read by a processor. Every single program you use, every OS and server, was made possible by her first compiler.

Spread the word! (Although I’ll bet there are still some dudebros out there who’ll claim she’s a “fake geek”…)

Favorite fact: She coined the term “debugging” when they had to remove an moth (an actual, living moth) that had gotten trapped in the Mark II computer at Harvard University in 1947. While referring to glitches as bugs existed before, she brought the term into popularity.