8.8 Designing, from specification to schematic

I declare: solidlikelyshaky

1. Write a measurable specification: what the device does, under what conditions, with what limits, and what you refuse to do.
2. Go from the specification to the block diagram, and from each block to a known topology, naming the alternatives set aside.
3. Keep the budgets: gain, noise, power, heat, consumption, price; distribute among the blocks and see where it pinches.
4. Choose components from their datasheets starting from the block’s constraints, not from what’s in the drawer, then look in the drawer.
5. Prototype the riskiest block first, and be able to say which block that is.
6. Measure the finished device against its specification, line by line, and write what you’d change.
7. Diagnosis: a device that "works" but disappoints, find the specification line you hadn’t written.