Re^2: Interesting insights from Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art

[itub]

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

[talexb]

;) I ask my wife because although she knows little about software development, or even computers, she has a very good grasp of logic and is quite able to ask intelligent questions. And asking questions comes in handy when the 'Aha!' moment doesn't occur.

And sometimes, there isn't a 'great' solution -- you just have to pick one of the available 'less great' options and go with it.