In my experience, it ends up being much more efficient (in the long term) to "understand with precision" - think and think and think about it, and only after yo

In my experience, it ends up being much more efficient (in the long term) to "understand with precision" - think and think and think about it, and only after you've thought it through, write the code. "Try until it works" is a mark of an inexperienced craftsman - simply not knowing enough about the tools, the particular domain and the problem at hand forces one to try and try again until something works.. but that kind of "accidental" approach is inefficient compared to an intentional, measured approach. It's very humbling to work alongside an older, experienced developer - the proportion of time they spend writing actual code is relatively low; most of the time is spent on working out the assumptions, the constraints, teasing out the larger picture from the details, and constructing a technical design... the actual code-writing is like a few quick yet measured strikes of a samurai sword - quiet, almost invisible, frighteningly effective.