Talk:Data (computer science)/Archive 1

Pronuciation
Is it "day-tah' or 'dah-tah'? -Ravedave 19:20, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

It's both, depending on your accent. 69.221.167.104 01:51, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

digital information?
Questioning the redirection this page claims over "digital information". I am trying to write a learning resource for digital information literacy and wanted to point to a wikipedia article on digital information which might encompass a wide range of information in digital formats - audio, video, images, documents, AND data. BTW. Great intro to data you have here! --Leighblackall 22:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Um, I'm pretty sure video, audio, etc., all qualify as "data". No?  —DragonHawk (talk) 00:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Code vs data
Shouldn't the example using the wordprocessor be more elaborate? Is the string on the button to start the spellchecker code or data? Fuzzbox 16:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * One could argue the point either way, I suppose. Perhaps there should be discussion on this "blurry" aspect of code vs data also?  I really wish I could fine some more reliable sources for attribution of this stuff, but this appears to be one of those things that everyone "just knows". —DragonHawk (talk) 01:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

A Standard Definition?
The book "Principles of Data Management" by Keith Gordon, published 2007 by British Computer Society states on page 3 that "data is a re-interpretable representation of information in a formalised manner suitable for communication, interpretation or processing." I like this! This recognises that we start with information, convert it to data, transform it to new data, then convert back to information again. I am not sure why the extra words make it better than, say, “A representation of information in a formalised manner suitable for electronic communication and processing”. Anyway, crucial to data management is the idea that this data should be capable of combination with other data to create new data which is capable of transformation back into information. Keith ascribes the definition to ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993 which I see is a standard called “Information technology - Vocabulary - Part 1: Fundamental terms Edition: 3.0” and costs £50 from the International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission / 01-Nov-1993 / 32 pages. I think this should get some recognition in this article, but I am a wiki novice and would not dare to begin with a direct edit. ChrisMaynard3 (talk) 21:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Standard Definition? There's a number of definitions and formalizations of what data is. e.g., the relational model, information theory, etc. Perhaps this article should reference these sources (and incorporate your definition above), before people start adding things about code vs. data. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.208.164.220 (talk) 00:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Better Definition
Data are "the quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer, being stored and transmitted in the form of electrical signals and recorded on magnetic, optical, or mechanical recording media." This is the definition from the Oxford Dictionaries. This definition may be found here: Oxford Dictionaries. The significant advantage of this definition is that it does not reference the term information. Information has meaning (to someone) and relates to knowledge and the transmission of knowledge. But data may not have meaning. For example: if I create a string from (a) an Egyptian hieroglyphic, (b) a letter from the English alphabet, (c) a Chinese logogram, and (d) an Old Norse rune this will definitely be data. But it won't be information because it has no meaning.

This relates to the fact that data processing is not the same as information processing -- even though these two terms appear to be conflated here in the wikipedia. SunSw0rd (talk) 18:18, 11 October 2012 (UTC)