Rethinking Agility in Databases - Part VI: Structure and Information, Revisited

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Conclusion

It’s not that the value of behavior and of content must be tracked separately. What I wanted to drive home all along is that they are two distinct things. “Valuing them separately,” was just a way of dividing the two kinds of change. Content and behavior are two distinct-but-related things. So long as that difference is recognized and in the forefront of your mind, I don’t really care which one you think of as more important. Although, I think I can pretty easily guess which one your customers value more.

My real point is not that behavior is less valuable than content. It is that information is the goal; that’s why we make databases in the first place. Databases don’t contain information. They create it as needed by combining their two major constituents: content and behavior.

In other words: information is intent whereas behavior and content are implementation.

Related Links: Introduction to this Series, Discussion Board (on Yahoo!), DataConstructor