Re: Mixing OO and DB

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:00:02 -0400
Message-ID: <47b732b5$0$4059$9a566e8b_at_news.aliant.net>


JOG wrote:

> On Feb 16, 5:29 pm, Bob Badour <bbad..._at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:
> 

>>JOG wrote:
>>
>>>On Feb 15, 5:27 pm, Bob Badour <bbad..._at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>>JOG wrote:
>>
>>>>>On Feb 14, 2:04 pm, Bob Badour <bbad..._at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>>>>[snip]
>>>>>>If it is represented suitably for machine processing, it is data.
>>
>>>>>So before computers there was no data? Really?
>>
>>>>Of course there was. Computers are not the only machines.
>>
>>>So when Galileo was looking through a telescope recording his
>>>observations on paper, what machine was that data for? Or when
>>>biologists were describing dodo's in their log books, again, what
>>>machine was that data for?
>>
>>Pointing to some information that isn't data and observing that it is
>>not data doesn't demonstrate anything. Okay, some information is not
>>data. The standard vocabularies already make that clear.
> 
> I think you misunderstand me. I am saying that the observations
> Galileo took down in his logbook /was/ data. It never went near
> machine processing (certainly not in his lifetime), but it was still
> data.

I have to ask: Why do you think it is data? Are you not applying the colloquial definition which is a synonym for information?

> The ISO definition is inadequate for use in a formal domain (it just > sounds like committee generated flim flam to me to be honest).

I find it ironic that you seem to apply an informal definition and then complain it is not useful in a formal domain.

>>>Nope, the "machine processing" definition just doesn't cut it imo.
>>
>>So, you are saying the gradations marked on a yardstick are not data.
>>You are suggesting that the machinery Brahe used for mapping the skies
>>didn't yield any data just because Brahe took the measurement as
>>recorded on the machinery and wrote it on vellum. On the machinery it
>>was both information and data, and on the vellum it was information.
>>
>>Likewise, you are suggesting a number recorded in beads on an abacus is
>>not data.
>>
>>
>>>>>>It has
>>>>>>value to the recipient as data because it evokes some emotion or image
>>>>>>and because a machine can store it, transmit it, reformat it etc. The
>>>>>>poem is also a fact. The poem doesn't convey a fact. It is one. Poem P
>>>>>>says Blah.
>>
>>>>>>[misguided argument snipped]
Received on Sat Feb 16 2008 - 20:00:02 CET

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