Point-in-time data

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Point-in-time data

Phil Factor

SSC-Insane

Points: 20244
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August 13, 2016 at 11:02 am

#329052

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Point-in-time data
Best wishes,
Phil Factor

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Nakul Vachhrajani SSChampion Points: 10283 More actions · Answer 1

In India, we have a dedicated branch of engineering called "Information Technology" (IT), and I often ask the students what is the real meaning of IT. The unfortunate part is that most are unable to identify the very point that today's editorial starts out with.

Data by itself is worthless. It is just some value - a value that is not yet "information". The value becomes "information" when a context is associated to the data:

- What does the data represent?

- What is the relationship of this data with other pieces of information and the parent entities?

- Who owns the data?

- When was the data captured?

- Where (domain) does the data apply?

- Why was the data captured?

- How long will the data be valid?

- How should this data be used?

Information tells a story, a story of time. All systems should ensure that data continues to tell this story (e.g. a product or service life cycle, a person's social outlook, the evolution of thoughts over time, etc) - otherwise they are just storing some values, not information.

Thanks & Regards,
Nakul Vachhrajani.
http://nakulvachhrajani.com

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Gary Varga SSC Guru Points: 82166 More actions · Answer 2

I imagine that this will remain a complex issue but it is great that features are being built to handle it. Only when a common approach is offered can you end up with a reasonably limited default set of positions. If it is too open then often people just ignore the issue.

Gaz

-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!

Eric M Russell SSC Guru Points: 125522 More actions · Answer 3

The next stage is to allow text blobs to use temporal tables by introducing versioning and differencing. That would be an interesting hybrid technology!

When we talk about versioning and differencing of text blobs, are we talking about what version control systems like Git and SVN do; incremental changes to files are versioned and assigned a unique timestamp?

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho