Data Flow Diagrams are mostly used for developers to get a physical representation of the system of they are using, or designing. You can use them to represent how a customer is going to interact with an ordering system, to how you are going to have your system provide a data export to a third party vendor.
However I realized today that I learned about data flow diagrams as early as eight years old, and in a place that would seem very unusual for a data flow diagram to be found. I learned it while attending a Primary class from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint on a lesson about the Plan of Salvation. The lesson was about how we lived before we came to this earth and where we will go after we leave our mortal life.
If we look at the diagram below and understands ourselves as an actor in the data flow diagram it is easy to see that there is more for us then us just being here in mortality. To better understand the really the purpose and concept of the diagram of the Plan of Salvation The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints states:
In the premortal existence, Heavenly Father prepared a plan to enable us to become like Him and receive a fullness of joy. The scriptures refer to this plan as "the plan of salvation" (Alma 24:14; Moses 6:62), "the great plan of happiness" (Alma 42:8), "the plan of redemption" (Jacob 6:8; Alma 12:30), and "the plan of mercy" (Alma 42:15). The plan of salvation is the fullness of the gospel. It includes the Creation, the Fall, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and all the laws, ordinances, and doctrines of the gospel. Moral agency, the ability to choose and act for ourselves, is also essential in Heavenly Father's plan. Because of this plan, we can be perfected through the Atonement, receive a fullness of joy, and live forever in the presence of God. Our family relationships can last throughout the eternities.
We can take this diagram and then we can break it down even more in to lower level diagrams so that we can better understand what it is that we need to do in this life to receive all that our Father in Heaven wants from us. We build a data flow diagram to show all the things that we need to do here on earth such has how we need to search for truth, be able to grow in faith to, accept the atonement of Jesus Christ so we can have faith in him, and how can provide service for others. From an article given by Elder Duane Gerrard of the Quorum of the Seventy of the LDS Church we read:
The Lord has carefully provided a plan of life called the plan of salvation. It comprises all of the laws, ordinances, principles, and doctrines required to complete our mortal journey and progress to a state of exaltation enjoyed by our Father in Heaven.
I know that if someone had try to explain the plan of salvation to me as a young boy without the aid of a diagram that I would have been severely lost and would not have understood what it was the teacher was trying to get across to me. Data Flow Diagrams help us to physically represent information if we were to just to try to explain to someone would be hard from them to grasp concepts that are unfamiliar with.
Bibliography
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.The Plan of Salvation, Retrieved October 3, 2009 Website: http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&sourceId=45af9daac5d98010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=bbd508f54922d010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
Gerrard, D.(1997).The Plan of Salvation: A Flight Plan for Life. Ensign
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