I don't know if you're a writer, but it's the exact same thing as when you're writing an essay or blog post. You have an idea, you start writing about it, and

I don't know if you're a writer, but it's the exact same thing as when you're writing an essay or blog post. You have an idea, you start writing about it, and then as you write, more ideas that you hadn't originally thought of start flowing, and you write them down as they come. So in that sense, you don't know what you're going to write until you actually write it. The act of writing one thing triggers new thoughts and ideas, which you immediately write down, which triggers more ideas. To me, that's the only fun kind of writing. It's the kind of writing I do to analyze or explain something to myself. The kind where I'm breaking new ground. Thus, exploring. P.S. I think this is a perfect opportunity to inject a link to a blog post of mine "Programming Is Writing" http://plpatterns.blogspot.com/2007/09/programming-is-writing.html http://plpatterns.blogspot.com/2007/09/programming-is-writin...