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Date:	Fri, 1 Jun 2001 11:50:51 PDT
From:	Peter Skye <pskye@peterskye.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-sundialsig@scoug.com
To:	scoug-sundialsig@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-SundialSIG: June meeting

Content Type: text/plain

Lynn H. Maxson wrote:
>
> we must store data using a given structure ...
> any time we would definitively talk about data
> we must agree on both its content (attributes
> and their current value) and context (structure).

When you grab financial data from "here and there", this can be tricky.

Q: What is the "content" and the "context" for the following three data
records?

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."
"It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide."
"Baile, baile la bamba, yo no necesito un poco de gracias."

It's difficult to specify the elements. Does "word" mean "from any
language or character set"? Does "sentence" or "phrase" imply noun-verb
relationships?

"Twas brillig, and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe."
Parsable but nonsensicle, yet visualizable.

The same lack-of-format problem occurs with a lot of financial data.

> At the same time we will have to provide a
> context, a structure on the content, with
> some means of identifying the attributes.

Note that this does _not_ mean that the data has to be changed or
"massaged" before we store it and use it.

Lynn only means (and I agree) that we have to know how to extract what
we need from the data files.

It's easier to teach the macro/program how to process the different
"types" of data files we receive than it is to create some "master plan"
(a data format) into which all data files must fit.

- Peter

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