The Rubber Plant Effect in software development

It has been observed that, when you're stuck on a software problem, explaining the problem to a colleague, or even to an ornamental plant in the office, often clarifies your own understanding of it, and leads you to a solution.

A possible explanation is that putting the problem into words usually linearizes it, and makes you choose one of two or more alternatives (because you can only say one of them at a time).

[computing]
John C. G. Sturdy
[John's home] Last modified: Sun Jun 10 22:00:02 GMT Daylight Time 2007