Data processing: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:22, 12 December 2005

Revision as of 16:57, 22 December 2005

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{{cleanup-date|December 2005}}

'''Data processing''' is any [[computer]] [[process]] that converts [[data]] into [[information]]. The processing is usually assumed to be automated and running on an a [[mainframe]], [[minicomputer]], [[microcomputer]], or [[personal computer]]. Because data isare most useful when well-presented and actually ''informative'', data-processing systems are often referred to as [[information system]]s to emphasize their practicality. Nevertheless, both terms are roughly synonymous, performing similar conversions; data-processing systems typically manipulate raw data into information, and likewise information systems typically take raw data as input to produce information as output.

To better market their profession, a [[computer programmer]] or a [[systems analyst]] that might once have referred, such as during the 1970s, to the computer systems that they produce as data-processing systems more often than not nowadays refers to the computer systems that they produce by some other term that includes the word [[information]], such as information systems, [[information technology]] systems, or [[management information systems]].

In the context of data processing, [[data]] are defined as [[number]]s or [[character (computing)|characters]] that represent [[measurement]]s from the real world. A single [[datum]] is a single measurement from the real world. Measured information is then algorithmically derived and/or logically deduced and/or statistically calculated from multiple data. ([[evidence]]). [[Information]] is defined as either a meaningful answer to a [[query]] or a meaningful stimulus that can cascade into further queries.

More generally, the term ''data processing'' can apply to any process that converts data from one format to another, although ''data [[conversion]]'' would be the more logical and correct term. From this perspective, data processing becomes the process of converting [[information]] into [[data]] and also the converting of data back into information. The distinction is that conversion doesn't require a question (query) to be answered. For example, [[information]] in the form of an string of characters forming a sentence in English is converted or [[encode]]d from a keyboard's key-presses as represented by hardware-oriented integer codes into [[ASCII]] integer codes after which it may be more easily processed by a computer—not as merely raw, amorphous integer data, but as a meaningful character in a [[natural language]]'s set of [[grapheme]]s—and finally converted or [[decode]]d to be displayed as characters, represented by a [[font]] on the computer display. In that example we can see the stage-by-stage conversion of the presence of and then absence of [[electrical conductivity]] in the key-press and subsequent release at the keyboard from raw substantially-meaningless integer hardware-oriented data to evermore-meaningful information as the processing proceeds toward the human being.

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Conversely, that simple example for pedagogical purposes here is usually described as an [[embedded system]] (for the software resident in the keyboard itself) or as (operating-)[[systems programming]], because the information is derived from a hardware interface and may involve overt control of the hardware through that interface by an operating system. Typically control of hardware by a device driver manipulating [[ASIC]] or [[FPGA]] registers is not viewed as part of data processing proper or information systems proper, but rather as the ___domain of embedded systems or (operating-)[[systems programming]]. Instead, perhaps a more conventional example of the established practice of using the term ''data processing'' is that a business has collected numerous data concerning an aspect of its operations and that this multitude of data must be presented in meaningful, easy-to-access presentations for the managers who must then use that information to increase revenue or to decrease cost. That conversion and presentation of data as information is typically performed by a data-processing [[software application|application]].

When the ___domain from which the data isare harvested is a science or an engineering, data processing and information systems are considered too broad of terms and the more specialized term [[data analysis]] is typically used, focusing on the highly-specialized and highly-accurate algorithmic derivations and statistical calculations that are less often observed in the typical general business environment. This divergence of culture is exhibited in the typical numerical representations used in data processing versus numerical; data processing's measurements are typically represented by [[integer]]s or by [[fixed-point]] or [[binary-coded decimal]] representations of [[real number]]s whereas the majority of data analysis's measurements are often represented by [[floating-point]] representation of real numbers.

Practically all naturally occurring processes can be viewed as examples of [[data processing system]]s where "real world" information in the form of [[pressure]], [[light]], etc. are converted by human [[observer]]s into [[electrical]] signals in the [[nervous system]] as the [[sense]]s we recognise as [[touch]], [[sound]], and [[Visual perception|vision]]. Even the interaction of non-living systems may be viewed in this way as rudimentary [[information processing system]]s. Conventional usage of the terms ''data processing'' and ''information system''s restricts their use to refer to the algorithmic derivations, logical deductions, and statistical calculations that recur perennially in general business environments, rather than in the more expansive sense of all conversions of real-world measurements into real-world information in, say, an organic biological system or even a scientific or engineering system.