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I have this pet peeve towards "unstructured data". There's no such thing - only data you don't understand the structure of. :P
by rogerb 8y ago
I have this pet peeve towards "unstructured data". There's no such thing - only data you don't understand the structure of.
:P
- kirubakaran 8y agoPeople usually mean "inconsistently structured data" when they say "unstructured data"
- brokensegue 8y agoor free text?
- lmkg 8y agoFree text is the traditional definition of unstructured data (along with audio & video equivalents). But I agree with GP, that people usually mean inconsistently-structured data when they use the term, whether it's accurate or not.
- ACow_Adonis 8y agoFree text being the definition of unstructured data is kind of funny if you think about it (and I agree that amongst computer people that's how they think about it), since the whole point of text is to structure data using alphabets, syllabary or logograms, such that it can be meaningfully be transferred and understood by multiple biological interpreters :)
- fierro 8y agoexactly. Like an irrational number.
- yawz 8y agoI think what most people understand by "unstructured data" is that it's hard/impossible to define a common schema/template that all instances of the type of data in question would adhere to.
- lilactown 8y agoStuart Halloway has a saying: "To me, schema means power. So when people say 'schema-less', I hear 'power-less.'"
- danso 8y agoI remember in a HN thread someone making the great observation that data without structure is just noise (i.e. not data at all).
- NotAnEconomist 8y agoI would argue the reverse: noise is data we can't interpret. You're welcome to point me at an unstructured noise source to support your point, though.
- philwelch 8y ago/dev/urandom
- NotAnEconomist 8y agoYour example of lack of structure, rather than merely something we can't interpret, is algorithmically generated? I think we may be speaking past each other.
- philwelch 8y agoHardware RNG then.
- zapzupnz 8y agoElectrical noise and interference.
- NotAnEconomist 8y agoThose are both examples of signals we can't interpret interfering with the signal we're trying to interpret. However, it's not like the electrical noise came to be by magic -- it's the result of many interactions that have a structure, and hence impart that structure on the "noise", we just lack key facts to be able to interpret that signal.
- 8y ago
- astazangasta 8y agoI think you have this backwards. All data is "unstructured", until you choose to find some structure in it. Deciding a bunch of points fit a line is entirely your call, after all. Until you are there to declare there's a structure, it's just a bunch of dots.
- rabidrat 8y agoEven having a designated x- and y- axis is some amount of structure, and you're right, a person has to be there to determine how they want to view/interact/interpret the structure. But it would be foolish to say that a csv with "time" and "value" columns is unstructured before a person comes along to plot time on the x-axis.