[desertedisland]

I've often thought that coding - for me - is more visual / graphical than anything else. If you could find a way to quantify + test people's ability to do that, you could throw rubbish coding challenges out the window and, given the state of tech hiring, be an instant millionaire.

Having said that, for me it's impossible to describe. There is a part of my brain that is putting things together (graphically, sort of) but simultaneously thinking dependencies, potential problems, optimisation, etc.. Then there's a part that is doing things based on experience and repetition - to be fair the second and third parts are more based on experience than anything else.