How does one work effectively as a coder without doing so?
I guess under strain, people might implement huge chunks of code they don't really understand.
The other way you can achieve the same result is reading a book on the topic trying to understand how it all works at lower level and creating your own implementation.
The second process is much more expensive in time and time is your currency at work.
A good programmer theoretically should implement something simple that he understand first and then come back with a professional solution.
Not sure how often that happens though.