Similar observations from the history of video game making. Historical archives like the making of Prince of Persia illustrates the art of constraint

https://github.com/jmechner/Prince-of-Persia-Apple-II https://www.jordanmechner.com/en/books/journals/

I took Sanjoy's Bayesian inference course at Olin College of Engineering. One of the few courses during my undergrad experience that just gave me pure joy and excitement. He's one of those people who can explain seemingly complex concepts to a 6 years old.

Think Complexity https://greenteapress.com/wp/think-complexity-2e/

I recommend Think Bayes by Allen Downey if you want to study more. It's a free book available online. http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkbayes/thinkbayes.pdf

I wonder if this is something that can be accomplshied at a scale, particually thinking in the context of maintaining upgrade readiness and update compliance for all the devices.

Absolutely, it is very easy to automate too. Arch has a great package manager BTW.