Formation Data Context

This web page is associated with a book called called Reverse Engineering the Universe.

The book can be bought at: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Dr_Jerome_Heath_Reverse_Engineering_the_Universe?id=_OvqBQAAQBAJ

The book gives a more complete explanation of these issues and includes a number of related topic discussions. The combination develops the understanding of these concepts from a number of viewpoints.

Super Archeological Layering

Formation Data Context is a concept relating how the data and the data relationships are formed in the computer. These relationships need to be understood so that we can manipulate the data and relationships in programming the computer and have decent predictions about what is happening and what the results will be.

It is significant to know when and why this text was put in written form.

Now we need to carry this analysis to the digital form. Why is this data being digitized?

Data comes into a computer system through a user interface. This the first form of the data. It arrives as some kind of stream of information from a user or a device. The original form often is quite different from the form needed in the application. The changes needed for the input may appear simple, but the process must consider all possible combinations that might appear in the stream.

In the computer an important characteristic of data is the address, where the data is “kept”. But knowing the address is the only way of finding the data in the computer. Often the address is “held” in the name given to the site or place of the data by the programmer.

As we use a lot of data in a given process it is of advantage to have that data together in some kind of form.

Meaning and Truth

My experience with textbooks on Structured Design and Project Management is that the Structured Systems Development was aimed at “truth”. The textbooks often relate the fact that you can prove the code produced is true and accurate. They often allude to going back into the “lab” and testing the code for this truth. The concept is that there is only one true way of doing anything and we need to find exactly that way. Of course, for them, the only way to find that “truth” is to use Structured Methodology.

The Agile approach has a different view on choosing the best code for a process, now. The basic design of various Agile Methodologies relates to developing meaning and not “truth”. The ultimate problem with “truth” is that in order to be ”truth”it must be taken out of context. “Truth”, by its definition, is a law unto itself. Meaning is always and must be always in context. All Agile Methodologies emphasize that context. since it is the only way to control the process; and since, in Agile, you have rejected “truth” (which is part of setting aside the Structured Methodology) as “the” controlling factor. The emphasis on the context represents the move to a dynamic understanding of reality and the project. The context is always changing and unchanging truth is nonsense. Meaning implies change through its reference to reality.

Formation Data Context

[Formation - as the data is formed in a process [systems or otherwise] - Data - the data changes in meaning [as it is processed] - Context - the change in meaning is directly associated with changes in its context [the context changes are part of and linked into the changes]. Understanding and defining this for any process is Formation Data Context.]

Dr. Jerome Heath