It's easier to "dive in" when it's a short term project that you are working on alone and it's in a problem domain that you are familiar with (in notch's case games programming).
I'm at the point know where I can build an E-Commerce site in an MVC framework and implement Client & Admin Logins , Stock management , product search and a shopping cart without having to engage my brain because the structure to me is fairly obvious.
On the other hand if I had to design a game I would have to think long and hard about how the different components would fit together and even then I would most likely get it wrong somewhere.
I'm at the point know where I can build an E-Commerce site in an MVC framework and implement Client & Admin Logins , Stock management , product search and a shopping cart without having to engage my brain because the structure to me is fairly obvious.
On the other hand if I had to design a game I would have to think long and hard about how the different components would fit together and even then I would most likely get it wrong somewhere.