[lz400]

I think maybe it's a bit of a notation problem. They seemed to have been talking about programming as just the "writing the code" phase. We all understand programming as the last step in solving a real problem. You have to understand the problem itself, come up with the algorithm, possibly optimize it, etc.

[pmoriarty]

"We all understand programming as the last step in solving a real problem. You have to understand the problem itself, come up with the algorithm, possibly optimize it, etc."

From the waterfall model to agile to test-driven programming and design to worse is better, programming has evolved away from the view that programming was just coming up with an unchanging, almost Platonic, ideal program and merely implementing it, to a much more iterative, exploratory process where code evolves in response to feedback from stakeholders and input from how it's working and meeting needs in the real world.