Writing software has a lot of similarities as writing an essay.

Reference [Paul Graham, March 2005](http://www.paulgraham.com/writing44.html)

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There are several principals that hold true in this essay about writing essays that hold true for writing great software, at least in the manner that I have learned and ascribe to.

They are:

* Write a fast 1st draft that will be bad, no edits, just write, and get all the words out there.
* Rewrite your 1st (maybe even a 2nd or 3rd draft)
* Review by yourself and others for improvements and corrections
* "Design" your essay for readers who will not read it as carefully as you have done during your editing and rewriting.

I think each one of these can be applied to software development where:

* Fast 1st Draft == Just get something working
* Rewrite == Refactor or Fresh-Starting
* Review == Code Review and/or Pull Request
* Design for Light Readers == Clean API and Good Docs