I remember when Data was …
Way back in 1968 when I started my career as a junior programmer – our Data was easy! We had text and numbers. That was it! No images, no videos, no audio clips. Just text and numbers.
All those years ago, we communicated with our Data in a very different way. Punch Cards, Paper Tape, enormous Magnetic Tapes and huge Disk Drives. Can you believe it was even more exciting? We could read the Data in its internal format. We all spoke hexadecimal. (You may have to google what this is). Hexadecimal was just one of many languages we had to learn to process and understand our Data.
In those early days of computing, we had 3 priorities – Requirements, Data, and our Programs.
I remember when Data was easy. I remember when Data was cherished, I remember when we were all responsible and accountable for the Data.
What's changed in the last almost 60 years? Well, I have got a lot older and we have lost or forgotten some of the key principles of managing our Data. Those key principles were; understanding the meaning of our Data, understanding the importance of our Data, identifying all the rules around the Data and validating against those rules before we stored the Data.
I remember when Data was understood consistently. I remember when Data Rules were defined. I remember when we made no compromises.
Have I got you thinking? Do you think we can recover some of the good stuff we used to do and combine it with the smart stuff we are now able to do? Let’s all remember the right stuff we should be doing.
