I usually spend time in a research phase. Writing out the main goals/ideas, writing pseudo-code, then actually coding. I find it works much better than the ha

I usually spend time in a research phase. Writing out the main goals/ideas, writing pseudo-code, then actually coding. I find it works much better than the hack it all out approach, but takes a little longer before I actually start coding. Many people don't like this because it takes some of the fun out of it. But, I usually end up with less re-writes and bugs in the end.