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Work in Small Steps to Improve Stability
- sprucebruce 3y agoZooming in on just how working (and deploying) in small steps can improve system stability. It's odd to me how few orgs have really learned this lesson, so here's my attempt at a brief explanation of the mechanisms involved.
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoThis is a good philosophy but not universally applicable. For example, it's a lot of work to test small incremental changes to a circuit design, because (unless the change is just substituting a drop-in replacement component), each small change requires me to fab and populate a new board, adding weeks of work and lead time. As much as it would be nice to test every change in isolation, I instead need to identify all possible improvements from testing prototype A, and compile as many as possible into the next revision for prototype B, in one big change. I would only work in smaller steps when there are identifiable critical uncertainties that can't be addressed in other ways, or when the changes are small enough to not affect the layout. But even then, I might have to make several variants in parallel just because of the efficiencies from not doing it sequentially.