An alias is a placeholder name, which needs to be replaced with a value before it can be used. For example, suppose an interviewer needs to be granted certain permissions on a candidate resume, but interviewers can be different for different candidates. In this case, an alias can be created for the interviewer that can be replaced with a real user when the permissions are to be granted to the interviewer.
In a way, an alias acts like a variable in a program that can be specified by a name but whose value is used when the program is run. This allows the developer to create only one permission set and many alias sets rather than many permission sets. Managing a permission set is more complex than managing an alias set. Further, many similar permission sets may become a nightmare to manage when changes may be required for all of them.
In general, an alias can represent a user, a group, a folder location (path in a repository), or a permission set. However, when an alias is stored its...