Burger Joint

As a Platform team at work, we split our offering in three tiers.

• alpha
• beta
• prod

Yes, yes, naming things is hard, why do you ask?

Today we were discussing how broken can alpha be.

I think a burger joint analogy works here.

If prod is your main street venue, the one where you take your wife and kids. You want the food to taste good, to be consistent every time you go, and probably good value for money.

Beta is that hole in the wall that you go regularly. Value for money is important, but you accept some variance from time to time. Usually you go with friends, very informal.

Alpha is cooking at home. You might experiment with stuff, try a new sauce, be brave about a different cooking method. If you make a mistake, it won’t have cost much, and won’t make anyone too mad at you.

There are a few basic rules, you don’t want to end up with a stomach bug in any of those places, washing hands is essential and all of that… The analogy has its limitations but you get the picture.