As an avid writer/thinker I do tend to write a lot of software on paper first. But not all! If I am making an arcade game I might jot down the basic idea at mo

As an avid writer/thinker I do tend to write a lot of software on paper first. But not all! If I am making an arcade game I might jot down the basic idea at most. I spend the majority of my time in a rapid-prototyping mode. I don’t write good code with all of my usual rigour; I write the first thing that could possibly work with the least amount of code possible. In this kind of prototyping mode I am constantly evaluating something you can’t really specify on paper: does it feel good, is it fun? However I generally throw away that kind of code once I am done with it and rewrite it using my usual methods. It is useful to practice “coding fast” for that reason. I had spent a good year or so practicing it as a skill. It can be useful. And being able to type fast can help reduce those iteration cycles. The goal is to get from idea to something that works and resembles the idea as quickly as possible.