[userbinator]

code whatever comes to mind and then "run and pray" that it works.

I've noticed this too, especially having worked with the newer students. Whenever I point out what needs to be changed, before I finish the sentence they make one of the changes (sometimes incorrectly) and then hit "build and run" in their IDE before I can stop them - and then often face a very long list of compilation errors, because I hadn't finished telling them everything that needed to be changed. I've also observed on many occasions someone trying to fix a bug by making many, many tiny changes, seemingly randomly, and attempting to compile and run between each change to "see if it works now", their code turning into a horrible mess in the process. A suitable term for this could be "IDE thrashing", since it appears to come from the "instant gratification" that they provide. Quite unproductive, and usually a sign that whoever is doing it has only a very vague idea of how their code works.

When I started using IDEs, the temptation was certainly quite strong, so I can certainly understand how those who started with one could fall into this trap. I think it takes a lot of discipline and the realisation that these frequent iterations are breaking concentration and making it more difficult to focus on the problem to avoid it. Even today most of my work is done with a text editor, a whiteboard, a pencil, and lots of paper. Whenever I face a non-obvious bug, my first reaction is not to "try something that might work", but to think carefully about the code/algorithm again and see if I didn't miss something the first time I designed it, because it tends to be just an indication that there's something further wrong.