Idempotent

Something I noted since joining control plane team is when I am writing an algorithm. Most of my SWE tasks are defining inputs and outputs and the logic in between. When I am implementing that logic in the code editor, I have to make sure I make idempotent changes when touching these prod-critical high-level code paths (like the Processing in ListRoles).

For me, I realized that that is an approach to rollouts, but also in small CLs, and even down to how I make manipulations of the code.

I had to Google it for myself to make sure it was the right word: idempotent- denoting an element of a set which is unchanged in value when multiplied or otherwise operated on by itself.