Vitaliy wrote:

> The most successful projects (in terms of performance vs cost) were done
> when documentation was kept to a bare minimum.

I'd say that the most successful projects in this sense are where
/everything/ is kept to the bare minimum needed to achieve the goals. The
problem with this is not this simple (and rather obvious) rule, but the
fact that when you are below the minimum in one area, the required effort
in other areas can be much more higher than the economy in the
below-minimum area. Finding this sweet spot of a global minimum is more an
art than a science.

I've probably seen more projects going down the drain because of
insufficient documentation (and scope clarification) before starting coding
than because of excessive documentation. There are quite a few things you
can (and should) find out before writing the first line of code (or
thinking about components and circuit structures you're going to use).
There are of course other things you'll only be able to find out after you
have a first prototype, and trying to nail them down before is mostly a
waste of time.

Gerhard

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