Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The holy trinity

There is a great similarity between Life and Software Development Life Cycle. (SDLC) In Life there are many phases: New Born -> Infant -> Teenage -> Bachelor -> Married -> Above 50's. In a similar manner, in SDLC we have Requirements -> Analysis & Design -> Coding -> Testing -> Delivery -> Maintenance.

As we all know that the Hindu trinity of Lord Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva represent different aspects of this lifecycle. For E.g. A new born or a requirement stage corresponds with Brahma's job of creating. All other phases are overseen by Vishnu and finally the project getting shelved or death is Shiva's portfolio.

Why do we have these divisions? One reason I can think of is delegation where the power to do things are delegated among different people. More importantly, it helps us to see the phases in a logical fashion. By this I mean breaking down a problem into smaller ones, and addressing them individually.

There can be overlaps in the above also. For e.g. creating code can be the forte of Brahma, but maintaining it is that of Vishnu. Clearcase and VSS (Versioning tools) fall under the hood of Vishnu. Remember, anything new to be created – assigned to Brahma and anything to be maintained assigned to Vishnu. Final liquidation – Shiva

Jai Guru Dev, Om

Guru30

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