Thats the subject of Paul Grahams new book!
The books home page
I always knew coding was a creative outlet too!
What struck me the most was the following:
“For a long time I felt bad about this, just as I once felt bad that I didn’t hold my pencil the way they taught me to in elementary school. If I had only looked over at the other makers, the painters or the architects, I would have realized that there was a name for what I was doing: sketching. As far as I can tell, the way they taught me to program in college was all wrong. You should figure out programs as you’re writing them, just as writers and painters and architects do.”
Surprisingly, I felt that interviewers on the other hand expect you to get it right on both the design and algorithmic level at the first try. Only one interviewer actually offered me an opportunity to ‘sketch’ on a real ‘easel’ (Eclipse). So thats 3 people who feel differently.