Rubberducking

Failure is often a dreaded word. It need not be. Programming is an art where it’s very easy to fail and you can usually fail fast. Use it to your advantage. Learn to fail with style.

Give yourself the option to fail deliberately and safely. Many tools can help you:

• Branches – Since I started using git, I often create a branch to play around with the code… then delete it and start again from scratch once I know where I need to go. This gives me the freedom to change configurations, disable features and modify code without tests. I even go as far as breaking existing features (sometimes they don’t even compile) if it makes me learn faster.
• Prototypes – create a simple throw-away project to test your code.
• Tracer bullets – whenever I need to connect a few modules together, I like to have a tracer bullet that will handle the normal path without any error handling. It gives me confidence that all the pieces fit together. It proves the chosen architecture works and yields the expected results.
• Tests – if I want to know how a particular method/class reacts in a specific context, I will sometimes create a test to test my behavior. I might keep the test as-is or sometimes I throw it away and it becomes part of a larger test.
• Scripting languages – ruby, python, groovy or whatever you fancy, these languages can often help you test an algorithm faster than in Java or C#.
• Pen & Paper – low tech, but sometimes writing down your thoughts is the best way to go. If it doesn’t work on paper, chances it works on a computer is pretty slim.
• Rubber duck – having an inanimate yellow friend near your computer that you can always talk to can never hurt .

Code is cheap and fast to write… once you know the way. A few failures early on will help you get a success when it counts.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 at 8:22 pm and is filed under programming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.