> how would you write a piece of code? using images in your head? are those images of code?

You think about what you want to write, then you write it. No, not images, thoughts doesn't need to be images, its just thoughts. No, they aren't code, the thoughts are just representations of programming concepts and abstractions that I can't name or visualize. It is like, when you think about a person and their personality, how does those thoughts work? Do you get words that represents everything about that persons personality? No, of course not, you can't fully capture a person in words or images. Yet you can still think and reason about their personality. That is the pure way your thoughts works. You can think about everything using abstract thoughts like that, including math, programming etc.

The fact that some people can't think about math or programming without translating that to language is very fascinating to me.