eric raymond said:
>   "You often don't really understand the problem
>   until after the first time you implement a solution."
>   -- The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond

bingo.

and it is only after you have implemented a dozen solutions
-- each of them bearing on a different facet of the problem --
that you understand that the problem all along was an elephant,
not a rope, or a tree, or anything else, and you are a blind man...

-bowerbird