Data refers to a collection of organised information, usually the result of experience,
observation or experiment, other information within a
computer system, or a set of premises. This may consist of numbers, words, or images, particularly as measurements or observations of a set
of variables. In computer science, data is anything in a form suitable for use with a computer. Data is often distinguished from programs.
A program is a set of instructions that detail a task for the computer to perform. In this sense, data is thus everything that is not program code.
In an alternate usage, binary files (which are not human-readable) are sometimes called "Data", as distinguished from human-readable "text".
The total amount of digital data in 2007 was estimated to be 281 billion gigabytes.
Data Service Engineering:
An Enterprise Architecture Team will develop the organization’s “Service” model first by defining the top level Business Functions. Once the
Business Functions are defined they are decomposed into “Services” which represent the processes and activities needed to manage the assets of
the organization in their various states. An example here would be the decomposition of the Business Function “Manage Orders” into “Services”
such as “Create Order”, “Fulfill Order”, “Ship Order”, “Invoice Order”, “Cancel/Update Order”, etc.
Computer science (or computing science) is the study and the science of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and
their implementation and application in computer systems. Computer science has many sub-fields; some emphasize the computation
of specific results (such as computer graphics), while others relate to properties of computational problems (such as computational
complexity theory). Still others focus on the challenges in implementing computations. For example, programming language theory studies
approaches to describing computations, while computer programming applies specific programming languages to solve specific computational
problems. A further subfield, human-computer interaction, focuses on the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable
and universally accessible to people.
Data vs programs:
Fundamentally, computers follow the instructions they are given. A set of instructions to perform a given task (or tasks) is called a "program".
In the nominal case, the program, as executed by the computer, will consist of binary machine code. The elements of storage manipulated by the
program, but not actually executed by the CPU, contain data.
Typically, different files are used to store programs vs data. Executable files contain programs; all other files are data files. However,
executable files may also contain data which is "built-in" to the program. In particular, some executable files have a data segment, which
nominally contains constants and initial values (both data).
For example: A user might first instruct the operating system to load a word processor program from one file, and then edit a document stored
in another file. In this example, the document would be considered data. If the word processor also features a spell checker, then the dictionary
(word list) for the spell checker would also be considered data. The algorithms used by the spell checker to suggest corrections would be
considered code.
The line between program and data can become blurry. An interpreter, for example, is a program. The input data to an interpreter is itself a
program—just not one expressed in native machine language. In many cases, the interpreted program will be a human-readable text file, which is
manipulated with a text editor—more normally associated with plain text data.
Meaning of data, information and knowledge:
The terms information and knowledge are frequently used for overlapping concepts. The main difference is in the level of abstraction being considered.
Data is the lowest level of abstraction, information is the next level, and finally, knowledge is the highest level among all three. For example,
the height of Mt. Everest is generally considered as "data", a book on Mt. Everest geological characteristics may be considered as "information",
and a report containing practical information on the best way to reach Mt. Everest's peak may be considered as "knowledge".
Information as a concept bears a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information
is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern,
perception, and representation.
Beynon-Davies uses the concept of a sign to distinguish between data and information. Data are symbols. Information occurs when symbols are
used to refer to something.
Relative sites:
Mobile (Cell) Phones,
Mobile phone features,
Cell Phone Usage,
Cell Phone Business Models,
History of Cell Phones,
3G,
History of the Telephone,
History of the Telephone Controversy Debate and Patents,
Source References and additional reading:
- "Computer science is the study of information" Department of Computer and Information Science, Guttenberg Information Technologies
- "Computer science is the study of computation." Computer Science Department, College of Saint Benedict, Saint John's University
- "Computer Science is the study of all aspects of computer systems, from the theoretical foundations to the very practical aspects of managing large software projects." Massey University
- Nigel Tout (2006). "Calculator Timeline". Vintage Calculator Web Museum.
- American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.
- Webopedia. Retrieved on 2007-03-19.
- OpenBSD Manual Pages (2004-12-04).
- Paul, Ryan (March 12, 2008). "Study: amount of digital info > global storage capacity", Ars Technica.
- Beynon-Davies P. (2002). Information Systems: an introduction to informatics in Organisations. Palgrave, Basingstoke, UK. ISBN 0-333-96390-3
- Wikipedia.org, the free encyclopedia
