“Identifying the collaboration of object types is necessary to ensure that all use-case classes work in harmony to complete the processing required for the business event that triggered the use-case scenario” –Whitten, Bently: Systems Analysis & Design, 7th edition. page 554.

When I read something like that my mind tends to follow a path that leads through considerations of friendship, families, churches, musical groups, human life cycles, stages and phases of human growth and development, beginnings and endings, transitions, successes and failures.

I wonder if systems analyst professionals ever think along these same lines–mapping the human condition to the framework of systems analysis & design?

People could be thought of as objects. Like software objects, people also have behaviors, attributes, and responsibilities. They cooperate with each other, as objects do. Sometimes they don’t cooperate well, as in a poorly-designed software system, and “harmony to complete the processing required for the business event,” doesn’t happen.

We each have our goals–people and computer systems: our “use-case scenarios.” And (as people) our goals may be held in common, especially when they are “higher,” abstract goals, like loving each other or building healthy communities.

If we were objects, and the use-case scenarios we were trying to achieve were things like build a loving community, raise happy and healthy children, pay the bills, establish positive feelings between people, build bonds of affection among people, plan and build secure and reliable futures, etc., then collaboration and cooperation between ourselves would be necessary.

Considering ourselves as people and not as software objects brings human concepts like friendship, love, affiliation, respect, and compassion to mind.

My intuition for today, as I study my computer systems textbook, is that the formation of human bonds, of friendship bonds, greatly facilitates the exchange of aid, of messaging, of collaboration, of growth…. Of all things necessary for the continuation of our souls in their journeys.

The pinching off, the turning away, the shutting down of positive messaging between people impedes and can harm each other.

Let’s respond to each other with kindness; let’s take initiatives to create relationships with each other, let us be responsible for the formation and maintenance of those relationships, and let them be of the friendship type.