Further from the main topic but related to your sentiment. One of the best ways to deal with this is to have more experienced guys who have faced these difficulties hanging around.<p>I am a theorist in an experimental laser group, and the group head remarked on a possible counter-intuitive arcing between two separated plates (for the sake of making an electric field) when pumping out the air in a chamber. One would expect that pumping out the air reduces the &quot;stuff&quot; (air) that could support a current between the plates, but due to other physics (longer mean-free path) actually allows a sweet point in which the plates can arc, possibly ruining equipment like power supplies. No one thinks about this until it happens because it&#x27;s physically counter-intuitive, and its too late...it really is one of those &quot;never happens until it happens&quot; sort of unexpected catastrophes that even if you read it in a book, you&#x27;d probably never remember it. He said this is why it&#x27;s important to have newer grad students work with senior graduate to provide continuity and experience so these mistakes don&#x27;t reoccur...that, I suppose, the horrific memory of destroying expensive power supplies helps the senior grads remember it better compared to someone reading a list of warning labels in a manual...<p>I&#x27;m assuming if you&#x27;re a small start-up, you don&#x27;t have more experienced people unless you hire them. So yeah, something like the C++-faq for general hacking suggestions is fun, if someone reads it.