I can attest to this. Once, a college teacher gave us a programming exercise, and then went on to suggest how we might go about solving it.

While he was talking, I started outlining a solution on a piece of paper. At school, I couldn't use a computer during class, so I'd gotten used to programming (and debugging!) on paper.

When I arrived at home, I typed it in and tried it out. Could I possibly reproduce that Multics story I'd read about?

It didn't compile the first time, but after correcting a variable name, it worked perfectly.