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I love this technique.

You can also use it when writing a block of code where you haven't decided what kind of functional abstractions or data structures you want. Write the code you wish you could write. Then fill in the code needed to support that.

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This is 100% my coding strategy in every context where it makes sense. Code to an imagined ideal API that makes what I'm currently writing clear and concise. Once I have that written, I just repeat the process from the next level of abstraction down. This strategy has served me well over the years.

I like having static analysis for undefined names in my IDE for exactly this reason: I can write the program in the natural order (high level to low level), and then have a little reminder about what I haven't finished yet.

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