To me, programming is all about designing things in such a way that the "theory" (using this particular meaning of the world) mostly already exists.

I see a lot of programmers start with an idea, and then they implement it. I prefer at least a little bit of cargo cult approach.

I don't re I start researching what tools are already out there and what others do in similar cases before I have any more than a vague idea of what I want to do.