Data and Reality

William Kent

Summary: the book title says it succinctly

Score: 60 / 100

It’s something between linguistics and engineering. Too general, too philosophical…

People in the data processing community have gotten used to viewing things in a highly simplistic way, dictated by the kind of tools they have at their disposal.

The first step toward understanding computers is an appreciation of their simplicity, not their complexity.

Becoming an expert in data structures is like becoming an expert in sentence structure and grammar. It’s not of much value if the thoughts you want to express are all muddled.

After death, a person ceases to exist for many legal purposes, but the data about him (or his body) continues to be relevant to a cemetery, or a coroner, or a medical researcher.

Categories are at the foundation of almost all approaches to the description of data.