software development

August 31, 2025

In recent years, I have found myself less often in front of the computer, and one result is that I seem to spend as much time thinking about coding as I do actually coding.

I’ve been working on a programming project this summer, one that’s coming together in a really cool way, and its development has been an odd and exciting experience. This week, I had an idea for an important revision; I was superbusy with other work, but/and the plan percolated — on walks, while doing the dishes. Yesterday evening, I had time to tinker, but my laptop stayed shut. Instead, I spent a couple of hours with a notebook. I continued to think about my planned revision as I fell asleep. I dreamed about it — or maybe the loop of thought just kept going, in a way that felt like dreaming.

This morning, I made coffee, finally sat down at my laptop, and … just did it, in one of the more robust, straight-through coding sessions of my life. And the plan that had crystallized in my imagination basically … just worked!

My programming style used to be very much “dive in, start typing, generate errors, learn from them” and I still think that’s the correct approach … but maybe I never realized there was an alternative? More likely, that alternative wasn’t yet available to me, at my level of skill and/or patience.

I’m now convinced that thinking about coding, at a safe distance from the computer, has profound value. I already knew this about writing, about fiction … feels nice to get here with code, too.

(There’s a satisfying thread of connection to programming’s history, the time before interactive terminals, when there wasn’t even the option to “dive in”: only to think, and write your program — the whole thing — and turn in your punchcards, and wait your turn in the queue, and, finally, see the result … !)