I agree with the spirit of "writing code" as part of the thinking process but I have to point out a few very dangerous pitfalls there.
first is the urge to write the whole prototype yourself from scratch. Not necessary, better avoided. You should just hack some things together, or pick something close to what you want off github. Idea is to have something working. I am a big proponent of implementing my ideas in a spreadsheet, then off to some code.
Second is modern software solutions are complex (think kubernetes, cloud provider quirks, authentication, sql/nosql, external apis) and easy to get lost in the minutiae, they shroud the original idea and takes strenuous effort to think clearly through the layers. To counter this, I keep a single project in my language of choice with the core business logic. No dependencies. everything else is stubbed or mocked. It runs in the IDE, on my laptop, offline with tests. This extra effort has paid off well to focus on core priorities and identify when bullshit tries to creep in. You could also use diagrams or whatever but working executable code is awesome to have.
third is to document my findings. Often I tend to tinker with the prototype way beyond the point of any meaningful threshold. its 2am before i know it and i kinda lose the lessons when i start the next day. Keeping a log in parallel with building the prototype helps me stay focussed, be clear in what my goals are and avoid repeating the same mistakes.
fourth is the rather controversial topic of estimation. When i have a running prototype, I tend to get excited and get too optimistic with my estimates. Rookie mistake. Always pad your estimates one order of magnitude higher. You still need to go through a lot of bs to get it into production. Remember that you will be working with a team, mostly idiots. Linus works alone.
first is the urge to write the whole prototype yourself from scratch. Not necessary, better avoided. You should just hack some things together, or pick something close to what you want off github. Idea is to have something working. I am a big proponent of implementing my ideas in a spreadsheet, then off to some code.
Second is modern software solutions are complex (think kubernetes, cloud provider quirks, authentication, sql/nosql, external apis) and easy to get lost in the minutiae, they shroud the original idea and takes strenuous effort to think clearly through the layers. To counter this, I keep a single project in my language of choice with the core business logic. No dependencies. everything else is stubbed or mocked. It runs in the IDE, on my laptop, offline with tests. This extra effort has paid off well to focus on core priorities and identify when bullshit tries to creep in. You could also use diagrams or whatever but working executable code is awesome to have.
third is to document my findings. Often I tend to tinker with the prototype way beyond the point of any meaningful threshold. its 2am before i know it and i kinda lose the lessons when i start the next day. Keeping a log in parallel with building the prototype helps me stay focussed, be clear in what my goals are and avoid repeating the same mistakes.
fourth is the rather controversial topic of estimation. When i have a running prototype, I tend to get excited and get too optimistic with my estimates. Rookie mistake. Always pad your estimates one order of magnitude higher. You still need to go through a lot of bs to get it into production. Remember that you will be working with a team, mostly idiots. Linus works alone.