Re: Data vs. Information

From: Jared Still <jkstill_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 09:21:12 -0700
Message-ID: <bf46380909080921y7b6b34b0ia9820a4ac57a1cc3_at_mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 9:36 PM, chet justice <chet.justice_at_gmail.com> 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.
>
>

Lots of good replies here.

I will take a different tack, one that is perhaps more sociological in nature.

Rather than writing that views turn data into information, it might be more helpful to state something like 'Views help make data understandable.'

Notice the weasel word 'help'. You may not be able to make a 2 year old understand why sleep is necessary ( We have had 2 year olds, and those of you that have or have had children will understand this better than those that have not), and you may not be able to make some coworkers understand the information imparted by logically composed data.

But you can try.

And careful consideration to the wording used to make that attempt can save you from the scorn of pedantic coworkers looking for a victim . :)

Jared Still
Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist

--
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Received on Tue Sep 08 2009 - 11:21:12 CDT