[illwrks]

I'm a designer by trade, programming is largely a hobby for me. By default I see things as pictures in my mind, I always have.

When I read something and it doesn't make absolute sense to me, I need to learn more about the context so that I can 'see' the whole picture and how it fits together. This means I can take a while to grasp something, but once I do I seem to have a better understanding of it than my peers - likely because I have that wider context.

I also have a tendency and desire to simplify the complex - which I think is a combination of my need to learn the detail in order to build that picture in my mind - and with my design background I can represent that well in reality.

In my corporate day job it means that I can take complex stuff and make sense of it. And provided I've got support to be brutal in cutting down information, I can simplify it for others to grasp also.

[butlike]

Simplifying the complex is an invaluable skill. It lets you cut the cruft from the problem and see it as it truly is, which can lead to shrewd, sometimes genius implementations.

[Brain_Man]

Do you really clearly see an image with colors stably without it easily disappearing? I can only kind of pretend I see something and then in a way see it through the pretending :)