The article mentions nginx returning 502 when a backend is down during a deploy. This a problem in the cases where restarting the backend isn't atomic. If the

The article mentions nginx returning 502 when a backend is down during a deploy. This a problem in the cases where restarting the backend isn't atomic. If the backend is able to perform a "reload" (vs. a slower stop/start or restart) and/or replace the old instances with the new when they're up -- assuming that's an atomic operation -- nginx will not return a 502. If one is rapidly iterating and prefers having a somewhat cleaner stop/start, the advice can be helpful even though it masks/papers over a problem (the backend being down).