In Hinduism, the “creator, destroyer, and preserver” gods are Brahma (creator), Vishnu (preserver), and Shiva (destroyer), collectively known as the Trimurti, representing the three primary aspects of the divine in Hindu belief.
Explanation:
Brahma:
The creator god, often depicted with four heads symbolizing his ability to see in all directions.
Vishnu:
The preserver god, responsible for maintaining balance and order in the universe.
Shiva:
The destroyer god, associated with transformation and the cyclical nature of life, destruction being necessary for new creation.
Applying Hindu Theology to Software
Wikipedia
Software development is very focused on the creator part. Preserver covers maintance. We don’t talk much about the destroyer.
I did once worked with a developer that took the approach that unit tests were the preserver and anything that did not break a unit test was subject to deletion. This works well in high code coverage cases.
Once I saw a codebase that had been built by copy paste have 2/3 of the code deleted. We were maintaining miltiple copies of various things. The compiler was able to help find unreachable code. Its amazing how productive you become after
At all levels of a system we should know what a component is used for. Find something that is sponsoring it being kept around. These will form chains so we can eventually link it to a user need. If a component does not have a useful purpose then it can be deleted. This is much easier to maintain if you are using outside in design.
Developer Rants 