A dev pipeline isn't a dev pipeline — it's a production system

Jerry Orr just posted a piece on the sundry blog arguing that a development pipeline should be treated as a production system, not a throwaway staging area. That's the kind of observation that sounds obvious until you've been burned by one that isn't.

The point is practical, not academic: if you build your pipeline once and then patch it for years, it accrues debt like any other service. The difference is you don't notice the rot until something breaks at 2 a.m. and you're staring at logs that don't match the config.

Why this matters for us: la gente writing code for real work — not for a demo — should treat their pipelines like the systems they are. Build them right, or pay for it later.

Why this matters for us: it's one of those craft lessons that applies to every tool we build, so we can write it and forget it's there.