Quote of the Day

 I think I just found one of my all-time favorite quotes here:

"You cannot write well without data." (George Higgins)

Look at how all-encompassing that quote is. It's not limited to technical articles, instructional material or journalism. Heck, it's not even talking about SQL!

teAchnology lists the five main types of writing as: Expository, Descriptive, Narrative, Persuasive and Creative. According to the site, creative writing "doesn't necessarily need to follow any line of facts, just as long as it's interesting to read."

So even writing that doesn't rely on facts needs data...interesting.

People Are Your Most Important Asset? - I Don't Think So

Our People Are Our Most Important Asset!

Donald Taylor posits here that people are an organization's most important asset.

Personally, I'd hesitate to work for a company that had that attitude.

On this blog, an organization's most important asset is data.

Although I wouldn't argue that a person is, "Something valuable that an entity benefits from, or has use of, in generating income", the complete definition of asset from businessdictionary.com is:

1. Something valuable that an entity owns, benefits from, or has use of, in generating income.
2. Accounting: Something that an entity has acquired or purchased, and that has money value (its cost, book value, market value, or residual value).

That doesn't sound right. Maybe we should dig a little deeper. Maybe people are tangible assets:

...anything that has long-term physical existence or is acquired for use in the operations of the business and not for sale to customers. 

A tad Orwellian, perhaps, but not too bad. Continuing:

...can be destroyed by fire, hurricane, or other disasters or accidents.

Gruesome, but true.

...can be used as collateral to raise loans, and can be more readily sold to raise cash in emergencies.

Stop right there.

How about intangible assets? Let's check that definition:

...the long-term resources of an entity, but have no physical existence.

Nope.

Sorry, I'm just not buying the idea that people are assets. So what are they?

I think a person is a resource:

An economic or productive factor required to accomplish an activity, or as means to undertake an enterprise and achieve desired outcome.

Now that's a person!

Let's wrap this discussion up with a couple of metaphors:

1. Data is the fuel for the engine (the resource) that produces information.
2. Data are the ingredients for the chef (the resource) to produce a meal (information).

Do you have any better examples? Do you agree or (more importantly) disagree?

PS: Some people don't like the term "Human Resources", but I always thought it meant resources for humans, not resources that are human.

When Is a Number Not a Number?

I've seen sample tables that have fields like Zip code or Social Security Number. These columns are invariably defined using an integer data type. I don't think this data is numeric; I think it's character data that happens to consist of all digits.

In my opinion, if an entity doesn't have arithmetic operations performed on it, then it shouldn't be defined as a number. 

Here's an example using SQL Server 2008 that demonstrates one of the pitfalls of using a numeric data type: leading zeros won't be displayed.  

CREATE TABLE ZipTest
(
 Zip1 SMALLINT,
 Zip2 VARCHAR(5) CHECK (Zip2 BETWEEN '00000' AND '99999')
)

INSERT INTO ZipTest VALUES(05678,'05678');

SELECT * FROM ZipTest

(1 row(s) affected)
Zip1   Zip2
------ -----
5678   05678

(1 row(s) affected)

These two values are obviously not the same.

So, to sum up (no pun intended): just because data looks numeric, doesn't necessarily mean it is numeric.

Welcome!

Welcome to Serving Data. Here, we'll be talking about data: what it is, what's it's good for, how to use it, manage it, store it and secure it.

To do all that, we'll need a Database Management System (DBMS). Since I've been tasked with learning Microsoft SQL Server at work, we'll primarily use that for the DBMS.

So, what's with the name? Why not "SQL Server Rocks", or "Living Among the Databases"? Because it's not the database that's important - it's the data. If the database is the kitchen, and the DBA is the chef, then the data are (yes, data is plural) the meats, vegetables, spices, etc. Which is more important: fancy knives and a high-end stove, or the best ingredients? Continuing the analogy, the finished meal that comes out of the kitchen is information. Information is different from data: data is raw facts, information is data plus meaning.

We can complete the food analogy to explain the 'Serving' part (can you tell I like to eat?). The main goal is to serve finished meals to the customers, but the food must be attended to, as well: it has to be stored and handled properly, the kitchen must be kept in good working order, and everything has to kept secure. So DBAs serve end users by making data available, but also serve the data by maintaining it.

So that's how the Serving Data blog came to be. We'll discuss almost anything related to data, and I'll share my experiences as I learn SQL Server 2008. Feel free to share or comment.

Thanks for reading.