in reply to Re: Interesting insights from Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
in thread Interesting insights from Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
Poor wife... why bug her when you can use a teddy bear? ;-)
Another effective technique is to explain your code to someone else. This will often cause you to explain the bug to yourself. Sometimes it takes no more than a few sentences, followed by an embarrassed "Never mind, I see what's wrong. Sorry to bother you." This works remarkably well; you can even use non-programmers as listeners. One university computer center kept a teddy bear near the help desk. Students with mysterious bugs were required to explain them to the bear before they could speak to a human counselor. --Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike
See also: Teddy Bear code reviews
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