Planning Smarter: Creating Blueprint-Quality Software Specifications

4.10. Creative Software Writing

To emphasize the creative aspect of software writing, it is interesting to look at parallels in the field of creative literary writing. In Writing without Teachers (Elbow, 1998), Peter Elbow proposes an approach to effective writing that runs completely counter to the prevailing control models of writing in which “everything is perfectly prepared and under total control so that I know exactly what I am going to write.” He points out that in following this established and accepted model of planning and outlining, “I discover that much of the preparation time was a waste of time. The most important things happen during writing…”

According to Elbow, the reason that the control model prevails is not because it is effective ...