Re: Data vs. Information
- From: chet justice <chet.justice@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: oracle-l <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:32:44 -0400
Apparently this is no small subject. I guess I'll have to read up quite a
bit.
As an addendum, here are the links that my friend had provided to me,
perhaps you will find them interesting as well.
*Principles of Communication
Enginnering*<http://www.google.com/books?id=4ORSAAAAMAAJ&dq=wozencraft+%26+jacobs&source=gbs_book_other_versions_r&cad=3>,
By John M. Wozencraft, Irwin Mark Jacobs
*Information Theory and Reliable
Communication*<http://www.google.com/books?id=4Ax8AAAAIAAJ&q=Information+Theory+and+Reliable+Communication&dq=Information+Theory+and+Reliable+Communication&ei=94mkSvHdFKfkyQSd3ZmMCA>,
By Robert G. Gallager
Noons wrote:
> Data by itself is meaningless. 10 is ten, nothing else.
> Once data is given a context it then means something, it carries
> information.
> 10 hats is something we all can understand and relate to readily.
>
I tried using a similar example, in my case it was a date. Is it a DOB?
Date of the record (tuple) creation? DOD? Without the context it is
essentially meaningless.
I see your point however.
Stephane Faroult wrote:
I hope that if you're still confused, it's at a higher level :-).
>
Of course I am.
While I believe I have a pretty good idea of how data fits together, I
believe I am lacking from the academic side of things. Most of my knowledge
has been achieved through reading online and practice. While not altogether
a bad thing, some of the fundamentals, especially in regards to the language
of databases, is lacking.
Thanks all for your thoughts. I'm sure I'll write this up at some point (if
only to serve as a reminder to myself).
chet
No, I don't think you're wrong. But I don't think you're right either. Let
> me elaborate in a nutshell.
>
> Data by itself is meaningless. 10 is ten, nothing else.
> Once data is given a context it then means something, it carries
> information.
> 10 hats is something we all can understand and relate to readily.
>
> By a similar token, data kept in a database as a bit bucket is meaningless.
> But data in a schema in a database gains meaning and therefore carries
> information.
>
> When you add to that data your own view - or semantically your
> interpretation of that data - you are adding even more information to any
> that data might already carry.
>
> I hope that makes sense. The subject can get quite complex. One thing I
> recommend: spend some time on Fabian Pascal's site,
> http://www.dbdebunk.com/index.html . I've found Fabian's text and
> teachings invaluable over a period in excess of 20 years and I do recommend
> his work to understand some of the database and data management lingo, its
> origins and its reasons. He's got a caustic approach to some subjects. But
> not entirely without humour, I think you'll appreciate his style.
>
> Then of course: there is always Chris Date and/or Ted Codd and many others
> in the theoretical field of data management and organization.
>
> One that I liked a lot and still follow and use regularly is homegrown:
> Conceptual Schema Design, from professor Nijssen and T. Halpin, Uni of Qld.
> Nijssen is one of the fathers of business modelling and absolutely
> indispensable to anyone wanting to learn about data management and
> information.
>
> Do some searches on those terms and names and there'll be heaps of material
> to spend your weekend on!
>
> ;)
>
> --
> Cheers
> Nuno Souto
> in sunny Sydney, Australia
>
>
Chet,
>
> I have just read Nuno's answer, I second it and want to elaborate a
> little - What is data is what you find in one particular column. What
> you call "record" (which Chris Date would call "tuple") IS information,
> because in one row of a table you create information by relating data
> (that's why it's called "relational"). When in table EMP you say that
> King is President and earns a miserable 5000 (not even 7 times more than
> the lowest salary - this guy should be locked up), that's information.
> King, President and 5000 mean nothing by themselves and are just data.
> Data isn't information, but two related pieces of data are.
>
> Now, joins in themselves don't create information - everything is
> already here. Views are just an alternate vision, that may be more
> appropriate in certain cases, like using polar rather than Cartesian
> coordinates is more appropriate for studying some mathematical
> functions. Or like a change of base in a vector space. And if your views
> are soundly built, they should exhibit all the main characteristics of
> tables - they should have keys (a set of columns that uniquely
> identifies each rows), they should be in 1NF with respect to the
> questions they are expected to answer (this is a tricky point - but if
> you are just interested in lists of people in departments, having a
> column in a view that contains a list of names doesn't violate 1NF. It
> violates it if afterwards you want to split it up to check each name).
> Modeling depends on what you want to do with the data, and it may be
> that an application relies on a set of views that might have been tables
> in their own right if the application has been in isolation.
>
> I hope that if you're still confused, it's at a higher level :-).
>
> --
> Stephane Faroult
> RoughSea Ltd <http://www.roughsea.com>
>
I can think of data/information in a context of a book.
>
> The book itself is data but it's content is useless unless you read it
> at which point it turns into information.
> - Show quoted text -
>
> On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 12:36 AM, chet justice<chet.justice@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> > I recently tried to make a case for views, in the last line of the post I
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Records in a table typically constitute data. Tables, joined together,
> in
> >> a view, tend to turn that data into information.
>
> --
> Alex Fatkulin,
> http://afatkulin.blogspot.com
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexfatkulin
>
On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:47 PM, Michael Moore <michaeljmoore@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
>> Information is that which informs. It could be data, or it might not be.
>> The fact that the button in the upper left corner of my window is red (mac)
>> 'informs' me that this is the button to push in order to close the window.
>> Something that informs me, might not inform you at all. So, in order for
>> something to be information, there must be an observer. Two observers of the
>> same data might both derive different information. Data are symbols which
>> have the 'potential' to inform.
>> Mike
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 9:36 PM, chet justice <chet.justice@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>
>>> I recently tried to make a case for
>>> views<http://www.oraclenerd.com/2009/09/case-for-views.html>,
>>> in the last line of the post I wrote:
>>>
>>> Records in a table typically constitute data. Tables, joined together, in
>>>> a view, tend to *turn that data into information.*
>>>>
>>>
>>> A very good friend and mentor who has like 27 masters degrees took
>>> umbrage with this statement. He said that data is information.
>>>
>>> While I don't necessarily disagree with him, I tried to frame it in the
>>> context of a database. I've always been told, or read, or heard, that a
>>> database stores data and from that, you get information (in the form of
>>> queries, reports, etc).
>>>
>>> Am I off my rocker here? Am I misinformed? Or just misspeak?
>>>
>>> More than anything I think it was more of a theoretical discussion, but I
>>> have enough respect for this individual to give it further thought?
>>>
>>> Anyone have an opinion or links on the subject?
>>>
>>> chet
>>>
>>> --
>>> chet justice
>>> www.oraclenerd.com
>>>
>>>
>>
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