A graphic I found very enlightening in the past year is here: http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com/images/age_old_battle/virtuous_cycle.png http://blog.thecodewhisp

A graphic I found very enlightening in the past year is here: http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com/images/age_old_battle/virtuous_cycle.png http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com/images/age_old_battle/virtu... from this blog post: http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com/2013/12/07/putting-an-age-old-battle-to-rest/ http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com/2013/12/07/putting-an-age-o... There's a lot of other good stuff there too, when you start digging through the archives. Generally, I find that I've got to build a prototype first, which is quick and dirty and ugly, but works. Then iterate as the structure emerges. Some things stay in flux, and it's okay to leave them messier, but eventually the code and functionality settles out and commonality arises. Quite often, I don't necessarily know what I'm doing going in; I've got a general goal, but until I experiment a bit, the best way to get there is unclear. One of the joys and pitfalls of a multi-paradigm language like C# is that there are so many different ways to skin a cat. You can pick and choose procedural, object-oriented, functional, or some bastard mishmash of all of the above and more.