I tend to think of programming as somewhat akin to proving theorems (which, despite the awful formal connotation, involves a lot of intuition) and writing non-fiction (which, despite the artsy connotation, involves a lot of structured thinking). Programming isn't even close to a well-defined, rigidly structured decision procedure; if it were, we'd get computers to do it.

I approach programming the same way I approach writing, or proofs: I start by gathering information (doing research for a paper, taking stock of useful already-proven theorems in the field for a proof), then put that together into an outline of some sort, and finally assemble it into a working (hopefully) final form.

Then I go back and edit the hell out of it. :-)

I also tend to anthropomorphise my programs, subroutines, and constructs:

• "This routine takes three inputs from the caller, does a few calculations, then hands them back."
• "When this printf(3) call got handed a NULL pointer, it got confused and dumped core."
• "This optimisation routine loops over the data, making local improvements until it gets bored."

See also Writing Habits.

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F o x t r o t U n i f o r m
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The hell with paco, vote for Erudil!