It means your domain is alien to mine, and I can't tell you what is or isn't appropriate.
For me programming is about automating some business process or at least something you already know how to do, so it's a case of: 1) transcribe the doing into plain code 2) factor out patterns/redundancy in the code. (In practice this is interleaved, and 2) results in building up a language for expressing the domain in code which in turn simplifies 1) - indeed, when adding new functionality it's often a case of first transforming the current code into a representation that makes the new functionality simple). 2) is where the vast majority of the work lies and what takes up the time. Just as good writing is good editing, good coding is good refactoring. At least in my domain.
I do research working on new experiences, like live programming environments. Nothing is really known, there is no spec, everything is a design prototype, code is disposable in a fail-fast kind of way. So I'm pretty extreme, I can see where other domains are very different.
For me programming is about automating some business process or at least something you already know how to do, so it's a case of: 1) transcribe the doing into plain code 2) factor out patterns/redundancy in the code. (In practice this is interleaved, and 2) results in building up a language for expressing the domain in code which in turn simplifies 1) - indeed, when adding new functionality it's often a case of first transforming the current code into a representation that makes the new functionality simple). 2) is where the vast majority of the work lies and what takes up the time. Just as good writing is good editing, good coding is good refactoring. At least in my domain.