Chapter 1: The Nature of Data

Chapter 1: The Nature of Data

Where is the wisdom?
Lost in the knowledge.
Where is the knowledge?
Lost in the information.
?T. S. Eliot

Where is the information?
Lost in the data.
Where is the data?
Lost in the #@%&! database!
? Joe Celko

Overview

So I am not the poet that T. S. Eliot is, but he probably never wrote a computer program in his life. However, I agree with his point about wisdom and information. And if he knew the distinction between data and information, I like to think that he would have agreed with mine.

I would like to define ?data,? without becoming too formal yet, as facts that can be represented with measurements using scales or with formal symbol systems within the context of a formal model. The model is supposed to represent something called ?the real world? in such a way that changes in the facts of ?the real world? are reflected by changes in the database. I will start referring to ?the real world? as ?the reality? for a model from now on.

The reason that you have a model is that you simply cannot put the real world into a computer or even into your own head. A model has to reflect the things that you think are important in the real world and the entities and properties that you wish to manipulate and predict.

I will argue that the first databases were the precursors to written language...

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Joe Celko's Data and Databases: Concepts in Practice

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Chapter 1: The Nature of Data

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