[seventhtiger]

I'm like you in that I used to code "against the IDE and test cases" by basically rapidly iterating and kind of refining as I go along. Always fast to compile and see what happens.

Learning to write code on paper for exams and on white boards for interviews actually improved my skills a lot. Maybe not everyone coded like I did, "against constraints", but having to slow down and take into account the constraints mentally led to making better code.