Talk:Data (computer science)

In modern languages code can be passed around via closures or delegates, edited, and persisted to databases much the same way any other data could be manipulated. The idea that anything that code isn't data is incorrect, as code can certainly be data at times.

: Correct. Fixed. SunSw0rd (talk) 18:47, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Data (plural of "datum") are ...

Silicon retina (talk) 18:51, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I found this page when I was researching grammar before reverting an edit that changed "data is" to "data are" on a computing related page. From this I have learned that in computing, "data" is often used as a mass noun. (mass noun; I learned something new today :)

• Eight bytes of data are transmitted .... (enumerated with units and therefore "data" is plural)
• The data is transmitted .... (not enumerated and no units, a mass noun and therefore "data" is singular)

You could argue against this, but then you would have to argue that "a single byte of data" should be phrased "a single byte of datum".

If you disagree with me, then try to convince a programmer that the proper term is "datum-byte". (I'd pay money to be ringside for that.)

Final note: the current first paragraph of this Data_(computing) article uses both "Digital data is" and "Digital data are". Which is correct? Or are both acceptable usage?

EE JRW (talk) 01:02, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I can't find a definition of the word data as used by mobile phone companies. The word appears in practically every mobile phone-related advertisement, but I'm sure they are not targeting IT specialists or statisticians. Phone companies seem to divide their services into "data" and "minutes", which they charge quite differently. For example, with such-and-such a package you get 50MB of data to use in one month, and 500 minutes of talktime. I've never been able to work out what this kind of data is. To me, data means numerical records of physical things like temperature, or how much electricity the country used over the last 5 years, or the speed and location of a rocket. I would be surprised if many people bought their mobile phones in order to send this kind of data to each other, so I conclude that I have not yet got a handle on what mobile phone companies mean by "data". (My best guess is that they mean internet usage, because with my megabytes of data I can apparently do Google searches and look at websites. But what prompted anybody to call internet usage "data"? I know that using the internet involves sending ones and zeros which are numbers and therefore sort of data; but voice calls are also transmitted as ones and zeros and yet are invariably distinguished from data.)

So what do mobile phone companies mean by "data"? UBJ 43X (talk) 09:49, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

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