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information-artifact-ontology / IAO

information artifact ontology

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database, datafile #15

Open zhengj2007 opened 9 years ago

zhengj2007 commented 9 years ago

From alanruttenberg@gmail.com on March 16, 2009 04:38:22

database, datafile

Asked about by Barry. I said "Need to be careful about database and file due to content/encoding issue."

Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/information-artifact-ontology/issues/detail?id=15

zhengj2007 commented 9 years ago

From mcour...@gmail.com on November 09, 2009 14:22:00

Summary: database, datafile

zhengj2007 commented 9 years ago

From mcour...@gmail.com on July 07, 2011 16:15:47

Starting definitions:

database "A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database - datafile "A data file is a computer file which stores data for use by a computer application or system. It generally does not refer to files that contain instructions or code to be executed (typically called program files), or to files which define the operation or structure of an application or system (which include configuration files, directory files, etc.); but to files that specifically contain information used as input, and/or written as output by some other software program." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_file Please update as needed.

zhengj2007 commented 9 years ago

From wddun...@gmail.com on July 07, 2011 19:00:46

Do we need to distinguish among the different types of databases? (e.g., relational database)

zhengj2007 commented 9 years ago

From alanruttenberg@gmail.com on July 08, 2011 12:40:04

Careful about use of term "data" which has a narrower meaning that ICE in IAO. Ref definition of data item. So give some thought to using ICE in place of "data". Also, current definition allows too many things - e.g the ICEs on the papers in my shoebox don't constitute a database, even though they are 'organized' chronologically.

I think we may want to narrow our scope to the digital form databases, which would then include some idea of them being manipulated by certain kinds of machines with certain kinds of algorithms.

Other thought: "for one or more purposes" seems redundant - are there any entities in scope of IAO not created for a purpose?

zhengj2007 commented 9 years ago

From mcour...@gmail.com on July 08, 2011 12:54:52

Would you be able to suggest updated definitions taking those into account?

zhengj2007 commented 9 years ago

From wddun...@gmail.com on July 08, 2011 17:40:35

I'm not sure to account for the various kinds of databases. From the context of the conversation, I am assuming that we are talking about databases in the software sense (e.g., SQL Server, Oracle, etc.). These systems include (among other things) data (whatever we decide that to mean) and software for managing data (i.e., DBMS). Some of the types of DBMSs I know of are relational, flat file, hierarchical, and object-oriented.