I don’t know about you, but I have been getting serious choice paralysis trying find the next great binge on Netflix. Everything seems contrived and formulaic. Lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of watching our Flatiron videos on my big HDTV screen. Watching programmers and instructors go through the cycle of Code - Fail - Debug -Fail Differently - Debug - Fail Yet Again - Debug - SUCCESS! has become very compelling watching. I go through the same nail-biting agita, yelling at the screen if I see something the tunnel vision of the coder doesn’t (because we’ve all been that coder), and screaming “YESSSS!” when a particularly gnarly problem has been artfully vanquished. Watching a master programmer think out loud is quite the narrative - and now I find myself thinking out loud while I’m working. It really helps. This is what’s known as “Rubber Duck Coding.” The term comes from the book “The Pragmatic Programmer,” in which there was a story about a programmer who would carry a little rubber duck around and would debug their code by explaining it line by line to the rubber duck. I suppose one could explain one’s code to the family dog or cat, but there’s something about the unflinching nature of that little happy, squeaky waterfowl that inspires us to think more clearly and clear those coding hurdles we face day in and day out. I think I’ll order one from Amazon right now…