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Thank you for the reminder -- it does feel like people can be in (at least) two different modes -- with a desire to vent and be heard, or inquiring about a solution. Yet it is not obvious which since the two can sound so similar.

If someone is grieving it's probably time to just listen, but when someone is stuck with a social problem they may be rubber ducking with you rather than considering you to be a good approximation of an oracle ;)



"Rubber ducking." As in speaking to your rubber duck with no expectation of a response? First time seeing this usage. Thanks.


I think they’re probably referring to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging


Moreso than that, imagine a rubber duck floating in the water: silently looking at you, nodding in understanding.


A way to deal with really perplexing bugs is to just carefully explain the code to an actual rubber duck.

"This code is obviously correct, right duck? Look here, this line first does x, then y happens and here... Wait a minute, that doesn't do z at all!"


Congratulations, you are one of today's Lucky Ten Thousand! https://xkcd.com/1053/




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