It’s all about mapping and translating information and questions to get a result (answers, solutions).

Programmers use all sorts of cognitive intuition as input and start thinking of ways to map this into other fields as part of a relation of the subjects. This requires good memory, good creative skills and an ability to think outside of all the real world boxes.

- Unomi -

Interesting that learning UML changed the way you think, Ran. When you talk about data structures, do you include computer programs in that?

Hey Dan, I was thinking of feeling around to build a picture of my surroundings out of pitch darkness, which I think is comparable to looking around in fog. I think that coding is an iterative process for me too, and for me at least it’s a process without a lot of state, besides what’s in the text editor/on scraps of paper around me. I’m often quite surprised when I’ve finished coding up something reasonably complex — I look around for the next thing to do and find the code is finished. I think this means I focus a lot on detail, and although I must be coding according to some kind of plan, don’t have a high level masterplan that says what is complete and what isn’t. Perhaps this is because my memory is terrible, and I’ve worked out ways of coding around that…

The act of coding feels to me like a gradual delineation, an iterative activity of mentally exploring the boundaries between related structures and processes. From past experience, I’m always roughly aware of how various sections will be implemented, but the precise details of that implementation and its hierarchies are something that will only emerge given time (and mental prototypes). It feels a little bit like refactoring, only before the code itself exists…

I tried this myself and I think what you’re seeing is really a well-trained sense of intuition. Let me expound a little:

Do you remember when you were a child and you saw a toy for the first time — the initial curious reactions are important in training the brain to recognize the toy and then the mechanics of dealing with the toy. Much like when you’re learning a programming language, the initial reaction of the brain is to try to recognize the patterns and then the problems to which certain solutions can be applied to.

So it’s a combination of the curious nature of the human being and the ability to intuitively apply solutions to problems usually iterating through many possible solutions in the process. Programmers seem to have a well trained sense of intuition about problem solving mainly due to training and exposure. Sometimes it also helps to be smart to some degree.