The speed of programming
 

I find it an interesting topic to talk about the speed of programming and to increase it, or to look out for things that decrease it.
What are the methods that you use. Is it like designing everything before you code, by using techniques like UML and ERD (database) or just start with the coding and while "on the job" refactoring things and find solutions.
And how to measure the speed of programming.

Any good thoughts on this one?

For me, it really depends on the size of the project.

For very small scripts / applications that only I'm working on, I'll knock them up on the fly with little or no design thought before hand.

For anything larger, or anything I'm working on with other people I always spend time doing the design in UML first. I'm a firm believer that proper application design should be performed before coding begins to give everyone (or even just yourself) a firm idea of what links to what, application flow and business logic, along with giving you a blueprint to code to.

As for the speed of programming, I usually work with 2 other developers on projects so if the deadline starts slipping we just put in the extra hours to catch up.

If it's just a personal application that I'm working on (ie, not something I'm getting paid for), I'm lucky if it gets finished at all. I've got more half-finished apps lying about than I can count :-(

Alan