--- title: Iterate or die | daily.dev description: Fast iteration cycles are the primary competitive advantage in software development. Using analogies from military tactics and stochastic gradient descent, the... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/iterate-or-die-c0kzilbay twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Iterate or die | daily.dev og:description: Fast iteration cycles are the primary competitive advantage in software development. Using analogies from military tactics and stochastic gradient descent, the... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/iterate-or-die-c0kzilbay og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/C0kZILbAY.png og:image:alt: Iterate or die og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Iterate or die **[Erik Bernhardsson](https://daily.dev/sources/erikbernhardsson)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Fast iteration cycles are the primary competitive advantage in software development. Using analogies from military tactics and stochastic gradient descent, the argument is made that a small team deploying code multiple times per day will outperform a team 10x larger that deploys every few months. Big-bang waterfall projects — whether at banks, government agencies, or even modern tech companies — fail because assumptions go unvalidated for months or years. Agile is criticized as 'mini-waterfall' when it doesn't create genuine feedback loops. Key antipatterns include compensating slow cycles with more hiring and attributing failure to insufficient planning rather than the futility of planning itself. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#cicd](https://daily.dev/tags/cicd), [#agile](https://daily.dev/tags/agile) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/iterate-or-die-c0kzilbay) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Iterate or die","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/iterate-or-die-c0kzilbay","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/iterate-or-die-c0kzilbay"},"datePublished":"2026-03-26T08:35:22.741Z","dateModified":"2026-03-26T08:38:16.931Z","description":"Fast iteration cycles are the primary competitive advantage in software development. Using analogies from military tactics and stochastic gradient descent, the...","image":"https://erikbern.com/assets/2016/02/rosenbrock_animated.gif","thumbnailUrl":"https://erikbern.com/assets/2016/02/rosenbrock_animated.gif","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Erik Bernhardsson","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Erik Bernhardsson","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--SlM88DTW--/f_auto,q_auto/v1774514112/logos/erikbernhardsson?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/erikbernhardsson"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/iterate-or-die-c0kzilbay","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"cicd,agile","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Erik Bernhardsson","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/erikbernhardsson"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Iterate or die"}]} ```