The coffee-making analogy is roughly correct when you're talking about green-field work (starting a project from scratch). However, all projects very quickly turn into debugging exercises and yak-shaving adventures to solve problems associated with whatever framework one is using.
I'd say programming is something like:
10% coffee-making (like the OP described-- blank sheet creation)
30% Yak-shaving (crazy yet related sub-tasks)
30% Detective work (debugging)
30% other.
I'd say programming is something like:
10% coffee-making (like the OP described-- blank sheet creation) 30% Yak-shaving (crazy yet related sub-tasks) 30% Detective work (debugging) 30% other.