Short Iterations and Rock Climbing
When programming, I get a strong feeling of unease when the spacing between iterations, that is, times between receiving feedback, grows too large.
That can be on a small scale, like when there is too much time between writing small unit tests and making them pass or too many lines of code changed in a single refactoring step. Or it can be on a larger scale, when it's been too long since I bundled up my code changes and submitted them for code review, and on the even longer scale, where it's too long between taking stock of where we are, where we want to go, and what the gap is between the two.
It's very similar to a feeling I'd get rock climbing.
As you embark on a roped-up climb, you rely either on pre-placed bolts or self-placed pieces of protection to keep you safe. If you have just clipped into such a piece, you'll feel quite comfortable and relieved: Should you slip right now, you won't fall far. But then you have to climb on. The further you go, the longer a potential fall becomes and the more nervous you get, longing desperately for the next bolt or next good protective placement.
In climbing, it's not practical to place too much protection. You'd either ruin the rock face by sewing it up with pre-drilled bolts, or you'd weigh yourself down with an unreasonable amount of protective gear and waste time and energy placing it. Instead, your good judgment is required: Match the distance between placements (the so-called runout) to the section's difficulty while keeping consequences in mind:
Easy climbing ahead and, should you fall now, you'd fall far but only hit air? Forge on.
Climbing near your limit, or potentially hitting a ledge, corner, or protrusion should you fall? Place more conservatively.
Same in software development. It doesn't hurt to know how to go super slow and write extremely tight micro-tests, but maybe a simple function of the type you've made hundreds of already can do without. On the other hand, unfamiliar terrain or changes that touch critical parts of the system benefit from slowing down and keeping the runout short.
