[marhee]

Software engineering is only about 20% writing code (the famous 40-20-40 split). Most people use it only for the first 40%, and very succesfully (im in that camp). If you use it to write your code you can theorettically maybe get 20% time improvement initially, but you loose a lot of time later redoing it or unraveling. Not worth bothering.

[bdangubic]

20% is one of those cool lies SWEs have been able to push through (like “our jobs are oh so very special we can’t really estimate it, we’ll create an entire sub-industries with our industry to make sure everyone knows we can’t estimate”).

SWEs spend 20% of the time writing code for exactly the same reason brick-layers spend 20% of their time laying bricks

[skydhash]

The other 80% is spent on the following:

- A lot of research. Libraries documentation, best practice, sample solutions, code history,... That could be easily 60% of the time. Even when you're familiar with the project, you're always checking other parts of the codebase and your notes.

- Communication. Most projects involve a team and there's a dependency graph between your work. There may be also a project manager dictating things and support that wants your input on some cases.

- Thinking. Code is just the written version of a solution. The latter needs to exists first. So you spend a lot of time wrangling with the problem and trying to balance tradeoffs. It also involves a lot of the other points.

Coding is a breeze compared to the others. And if you have setup a good environment, it's even enjoyable.