# What is iteration? With linear growth, you build something and keep adding to it over time. With iteration, you build something, throw it away or dismantle it, and rebuild it again from scratch with the information from the first build. You can see they are different because linear growth adds on to the same foundation; iteration rebuilds the *foundation* too, based on the information from the final product. These are fundamentally different ways of thinking. In high tech and engineering, they have compared them. And although it doesn't make a lot of sense — because you are rebuilding the same structures two or three times — iteration actually reaches robust solutions faster and more efficently. ### It's hard to throw things away When things aren't working there is a cognitive bias called "sunk costs". We put energy into the bad solution and don't want to admit we wasted our time. But this is a mental game, we didn't waste our time if we learned a better way to do things. Its really important to realize when we're acting or building under the sunk costs fallacy. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://sexytrees.savimbo.com/practice-guide/iteration/what-is-iteration.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.