Meet Pal
A small ritual for clearer thinking — and an alligator with a purpose.
Talking through a problem often untangles it.
That’s the idea behind rubber duck debugging: you explain your issue to an inanimate listener, and in doing so, hear your own reasoning more clearly.
The technique became well known through The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas.
Speaking aloud slows your thoughts just enough to expose fuzzy assumptions, contradictions, or missing links that stay hidden in silent thinking.
This is Pal, my debugging partner:
Pal stands for programming alligator. That grin is often the encouragement I need to reason things through.
You can tell it’s an alligator by the smile.
A crocodile wouldn’t — and its teeth would be far less supportive.