In my graduate math research I had to find patterns, formalize them and eventually prove more and more little results that added up to bigger results. I went th

In my graduate math research I had to find patterns, formalize them and eventually prove more and more little results that added up to bigger results. I went through a lot of iterations, calculations and "experiments". The thing that guided me the most was that I had a feeling that things could be simplified, streamlined and generalized. It was a feeling that didn't go away until I found what I felt like I needed to find. I find myself in a similar situation with development. There's an unescapable feeling that things could be created or improved. The feeling doesn't go away until I've done the work. So I think what you're talking about is more so dependent on the person's mind rather than what they're doing. Like Conway's law, I think usually systems grow to mimic the developers' way of thinking, whether those are mathematical systems or software systems.