Are you me? I started coding professionally in 2004 or 2005 (if memory serves) and a few years of tinkering before then. Your process describes mine almost to a

Are you me? I started coding professionally in 2004 or 2005 (if memory serves) and a few years of tinkering before then. Your process describes mine almost to a T – building the mental model is the hard part, writing it down is mechanics more than anything else. It used to be the other way around; I didn't know how the mechanics worked so I worried more about that than the ideas, they seemed the trivial bit but over time that shifted. Not quite sure when it tipped over, but it definitely did. (The last nota bene of your comment is particularly striking to me. I love tests and I try to automate them as much as possible, but sometimes you just gotta prod and poke the thing to really get a feel for it.)