I meant "build" in the broadest sense. Could also be provisioning a VM or building a docker image.

I don't do any of those things. I work in a Lisp environment, incremental compilation. No need to rebuild the world! The idea that compilation needs to be a big thing is a Unix idea.

In regards to working in a Lisp environment:

A little girl walked into a pet shop and asked in the sweetest lisp: "Excuthe me, mithter, do you keep widdle wabbits?" As the shop keeper's heart melted, he got down on his knees to her level, asking: "Do you want a widdle white wabbit, or a thoft and fuwwwy bwack wabbit, or maybe one like this cute widdle bwown wabbit over here?" The little girl leaned forward and said: "I don't fink my pet python weally gives a thit."

A word of caution from a specialist I know to anyone who has a child. Turning "shit" into "sit" is normal even for a seven year old. But "thit" is not normal. It's an over-correction that may take quite long to disappear by itself or it may be permanent.

That's the most random nugget of wisdom I've encountered in some time. Thanks, I'll keep it in mind should I ever have a kid!

Then you make sure you can update a live/running docker image without having to remake it.

That is not always possible. i.e. installing CUDA drivers in your pipeline, running tests, dependency fetching

and if thy cuda driver installation slow thee, cut it off, and cast it from thy pipeline: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy build dependencies should perish, and not that thy whole pipeline should be cast into the mire.