Ask HN: What do you think while developing?

Weirdly enough, I have never stopped to think about what I think when I am coding. I actually am not thinking of anything, at least not subconsciously anyway. I find I talk to myself out loud quite frequently, more in the form of questions and expressions, "Why are you not working?", "Line 38, line 38", "Hmm interesting" and "WTF?"

When I am not coding, I like to play guitar. I find the two are quite similar in that I don't think about what strings I want to play or think about the chords, it just happens thanks to my muscle memory. I actually don't think at all when I play guitar and the times I am aware of this fact, it actually throws me off and messes up my playing when I attempt to think. This is how I code, I don't think about what I am going to write, I just know like it is embedded in my muscle memory.

I actually wrote my thoughts in a diary (edited a bit)

Everything I do has a purpose. Often when I'm programming, I'm consolidating effort...

I don't build shortcuts. I'm not programming to survive. I'm programming foundation to build on top of. The potential is limitless.

I'm building so other people can use, so I document the hell out of it.

I'm building so other poeple can use, so I follow the patterns of the best applications out there.

I'm building so other people can use it to function and save huge amounts of time - get done lots of stuff to great effect, very simply. To remove duplication from their lives.

DRY > Duplication. Macro > Repetition. Abstraction, Idiomatic > DSL / solipsism. Pragmatism and Wisdom.

Write code to be simple. Write it to function.

Utility. Build to the stars.

This me, who I am, my being is truth, ignore the liars. Just build.

Usually I'm asking myself questions (what do I need here? Do I need to add something else if X happens?), and putting together a solution to a puzzle - this is stuff I've already mostly worked out, mainly just replaying my thoughts.

Also I think of what will the computer do with what I'm coding, how things will calculate, or how the user will see it or respond, part of it is on the fly debugging, part optimization, often during this, I also think of additional code for optimization elsewhere, fixes or new features.

One thing I know is when I'm in the zone my human interaction skills goes down, not much for platitudes or chit chat, unless it's about the stuff I'm working on.

Usually my thought process goes something like: "Hmm, that's weird, why doesn't this work"

"Oh..duh"

"...okay nope that wasn't it. "

...googling

"Ahh that should fix it"

"F!&*"

"Oh, duh that was simple. That should fix this part and then I should get this to output the right....hmm, that's weird"

Obviously, the problem is in the definition of "to think".

Some people think that to think, is to have some internal word-based discourse.

And indeed, when you are learning, eg. mathematics, you are transmitted a formal discourse system, such as two plus two equal four, eight plus five equal three carry one, plus some rules such as: add digits and carries from the right, to the left.

But notice already the limits of this system: even when you're a young adder, you won't keep telling you the rules: "add digits and carries form the right to the left", or current adding column is the second from the right, let's move to the next column on the left.": you JUST DO IT.

Ie. once you've learned the rule, you apply it without thinking. (I mean, without this kind of verbal discourse). Once you've learned the tabular data, you also use it without needing to recite it verbally.

This is the same when you learn music, cooking, bicycling, or anything. At first, you have some verbal description of what you should do, step by step, and you may "think" about it to interpret the "program". But if you really learn it, your brain will "compile" this verbal program into your subconscious.

And this is why it is important for children to learn mathematics reasoning and programming, not because they'll become mathematicians or programmers, but because they'll learn reasoning processes that their brains will compile and that they may forget the sources (the verbal lessions given to them). But their brains will have been hard wired with those compiled logical reasoning programs that will make them and the world better.

Oh, and yes, when you know programming, your verbal centers are free, so you may use them for other things, such as temporary storage "line 38, line 38" :-)

This is also a reason why I'm not sure vocal interfaces could be made quite usable for programming (or for mathematics, or polytonal music, or for sports (try to tell a robot how to move each of its muscles to jump over a bar)).