The rubber duck at the head of the army

[kpreid]

You've probably heard (if you’re a programmer) about the cardboard programmer or rubber duck debugging.

These days, my rubber duck is the Ask a Question form at Stack Overflow (or another Stack Exchange Network site appropriate for the topic at hand). Writing a clear and considered question serves the same purpose as the hypothetical cardboard cutout or coworker — and if you don’t find your solution by the rubber duck method, then you have the question all ready to go, so no effort is wasted.

I haven’t gotten around to talking about it before, but I’m a big fan of Stack Exchange — it's a great place to get answers and give them, and focused on being a good resource in the long term and for all the web, not just another forum for discussions.