I do this for things that require a lot of thought, but I tend to do it with pseudo code and little scribbles on the side (tables of variable state for loop cou

I do this for things that require a lot of thought, but I tend to do it with pseudo code and little scribbles on the side (tables of variable state for loop count 1..x, etc) and not worry too much about syntax, scope, and so on. Usually that gets to a point where I can put the paper down and try it with real code.