I am with you, blazar. While I can laugh at myself (as in brilliance or... easy erasure?) for my perceived sloppiness, I also define my systems as I go. I find that the recent 'helical evolution' model of psychological creativity (See Nonaka et al, The Knowledge Spiral) has some bearing. My thought process leads me to build my problem space model (source data + transformational program) organically. Data structures lead to effectors, which lead to refinement of data structures, and then communicators and state-managers become necessary, etc.

That said, in a group development project it is tougher to maintain the organic growth because we programmers aren't often as good at speaking English (or whatever :) as we are Perl or C or Ruby. IMHO, for those of us who have to perform in such environments, <RANT> time spent learning a second language (using your mouth) and a third language (cultural body cues) and a fourth language (the conversation inside your own head) is time better spent than learning more computerese of any flavor.</RANT>

Just my 0.02USD, your Euro value may vary. :D