Piping Systems
Piping systems are networks of pipes, valves, fittings, and other components used to transport fluids (liquids, gases, or slurries) in industrial, commercial, and residential applications. They are fundamental in industries like oil and gas, chemical processing, water treatment, and HVAC, ensuring safe and efficient fluid flow under various pressures and temperatures. In software development, the term is often used metaphorically to describe data flow or process chaining, such as in Unix pipelines or data processing frameworks.
Developers should understand piping systems when working in domains like DevOps, data engineering, or system administration, where data flow between processes is critical. For example, in Unix/Linux environments, mastering command-line piping (e.g., using '|') allows for efficient data manipulation and automation. In software design, knowledge of data pipelines helps in building scalable systems for ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes, streaming data, or microservices communication.