Definitely, there is a lot of iterative design as well - but in my experience usually when changing an existing system rather than building a new one, which is

Definitely, there is a lot of iterative design as well - but in my experience usually when changing an existing system rather than building a new one, which is what system design focuses on. I agree about the continuum of projects as well, but again I’d say most of the system design questions I’ve seen, if they were real projects they’d be the up-front design kind, but this is not necessarily the way all projects go.