From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2007-03-22T06:53:54+09:00
Subject: Re: Object/Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Sci

On Thu, 22 Mar 2007, Austin Ziegler wrote:

> I have to disagree with you, Ara. If you start with a set of data and your
> business rules, you can reformulate the applications to derive *value* from
> the set of data. On the other hand, if you have a set of applications that
> implement your business rules and no data ... you can't derive value at all.
>
> Without data, you absolutely cannot do anything. If customers have to, they
> can buy or write new programs to work with their data. They can almost
> *never* recover lost data.
>
> Case in point: Alaska Revenue just had to spend $200,000 in overtime to
> rescan paper data that had been lost from their online system and the backup
> was unreadable.

don't get me wrong - i understand your point.  still, it's not quite so clear
cut imho though.  for instance, we store both raw and derived satellite
products in our mass store.  people tend to consider the raw in just those
terms you are describing - the foundation of it all.  however, as the
developer that manages the system which manages that data i can say that there
are literally dozens of small but critical peices of software which touches
the data before it hits disk.  and this doesn't even take into account the
fact that the data has been stored and replayed from a crappy magnetic tape
which then relayed the stuff to a downlink and then bounces a few hops around
the world to get to us.  in reality the 'raw' data is only as good as the
weakest link in all those applications and hardware bits.

that might seem far fetched, but my experience is that this sort of thinking -
that data is something hard and real - is pervasive in science and nearly
always wrong.  not long ago i go a bunch of data dumped on my lap: hundreds of
cds of ionosounde data from stations all around the world.  in theory the data
should all carry a unique signature and all the code this group used made this
assumption.  of course they were wrong: i wrote a script to scour the data
looking for 'impossible' contradictions.  the results?  thousands of dups and
logical contradictions that they didn't even know about.

i could tell 20 more stories like this.  people think the word 'data' is holy
and that it's somehow different from the data collection sofware and hardware
which collected it.  maybe this is obvious to most people, but it's worth
stating for posterity that the 'data' is often 'crap' because not enough
attention was paid to the software and hardware which collected and verified
it and, in that sense, this whole commentary is a bit circular.

nevertheless i do agree that 'data' is more important when a person is using
the normal divisions we use when thinking about it.  it's just that those
divisions can be artificial sometimes without people being aware of it.

> Right, but if you needed to, you could easily (fsvo easily) rewrite the
> complex application; it would be far harder to try to recreate the data --
> especially the historical data you have from satellite imagery. It's not as
> if you can rewind the clock seven days to get a satellite image you lost a
> week ago.

this is true of course.

> You are right that programs help you derive *value* from the data, but
> programs are far more easily replaced than data.

it depends on the collection method - but that is nearly always true too.

cheers.

-a
-- 
be kind whenever possible... it is always possible.
- the dalai lama