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I've done both hardware and software projects. My hardware projects began with an analysis phase where feasibility studies were done to answer questions like,

I've done both hardware and software projects. My hardware projects began with an analysis phase where feasibility studies were done to answer questions like, can we build it at the desired frequency with current technology? No actual work on the project would be done at this point, since it was at risk of being thrown away. Modern software projects seem to just start with people typing and little upfront documentation. A long time ago there was documentation (flow charts, Booch diagrams). Now whether these are useful seems debatable, but I do not see any upfront analysis done with software.

mikekchar 7y ago
With hardware you can check your designs against the laws of physics. With software there usually aren't any such laws. Being a guy who has actually written a 1300 page requirements document in my career as well as large books full of designs, my experience has been that the only thing you can test them against is code. Usually you are wrong :-). It's much better to start off with tiny pieces and make sure to write a lot of code along the way. Exactly how much upfront analysis you need before you start writing code is a judgement call, but I would say that it's almost always safer to err on the side of writing code too soon.