Andy Butland

Just thought I'd share a "developing in lock-down" tip, which I inadvertently invented (well, let's say discovered) last week. I'm going to call it recorded rubber ducking . The idea of rubber ducking being that if you talk out a problem, even to yourself, you may hit upon the answer. That wasn't working for me, so instead I felt I needed to ask my colleagues to see if someone could see what I couldn't. Importantly though - and really I was just trying not to waste people's time - I took the trouble to clearly write out the issue. What it was, what I'd found, and what still puzzled me. I planned to then post this in Slack, in one hit with all the information, rather than starting with a "@here, anyone know about X?" type of message and follow up from there. And, as you've probably guessed, the act of doing that was sufficient to see the solution to problem* without even bothering anyone. Clearly the action of writing, and