If you jump to the front page you will see the name of this blog and its motto. Platform’s name is just Information Technology, and wise words below this were spoken by Edsger Dijkstra, Dutch computer scientist. You probably wonder what led me to come up with such an obvious name. Let me explain.
The Definition of Information
What is the definition of Information? Wikipedia is quite concise, it says:
Information is processed, organized and structured data.
To make it clearer, let me use some real-world example. Story goes like this. Anna and Derek are couple. They live in a flat located on the last floor of 19th century building. The place is nice and all, but there is one, big problem. During last winter heating system broke down, and according to property owner this is impossible to fix. It turns out that heat is also a problem during summer, but not one coming from radiator. Leaving on the last floor means there is very little space between apartment’s ceiling and the roof. Right after sunrise, temperature keeps rising and quickly reaches 35℃ or more. The best solution was to install air conditioning, so occupants will be able to precisely set comfortable conditions within their place. Technicians who set the whole thing up have just left the apartment.
Processed, Organized And Structured
When Derek moved to the kitchen to cook some dinner, Anna took User’s Manual provided with AC device and started studying. What caught her eye was bolded, enlarged text, saying that it is not recommended turning on the system when temperature outside is between 5℃ and 20℃.
The latest piece of information in Anna’s head is a rule for proper using of the AC. She was warned not to turn on main device, when the temperature outside the building is out of particular range. Let’s check if this warning can be considered an Information.
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Is it processed? Surely. Engineers responsible for the product had observed, that their device comes with design flaws and decided to inform potential users what they may expect. It probably was a better idea than just fixing the issue :)
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Is it organized? Without a doubt. User Manual comes in a form of book containing pages, chapters and a glossary.
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And finally, is it structured? Of course. It appeals as a text which is an organized set of characters.
The day was saved by one sentence. If Anna wasn’t so meticulous, they would be hanging on the phone until next day, trying to contact company which made this electronic piece of an art. And such a nice evening would go to hell.
Information Is Everywhere
If you take a moment and think where else Information can be found, you will quickly realise it’s basically everywhere. Red light on the intersection tells drivers to stop their vehicles, or some bad accident will happen. The price tag on a pair of shoes inform potential buyers if they can afford it. A prospect in a travel agency stuffed with pictures of hotel, gives you some idea on how your holiday may look like. The list of good examples is infinite. Oh, and do we need a machine called computer to interact with things such as road signs or menu in the restaurant? Answer seems to be obvious.
Information can be pictured as a tiny particle, which combined with other particles, creates reality we all live in. Problems begin to rise when number of “particles” grows too big to be handled by human or when time needed to deliver it grows exponentially. Electronic devices with data processing capabilities, equipped with processing units, are solution to these bottlenecks. They are fast, efficient and shipped with software which helps us to get the most of them.
Now you may say, that as a smartphone user you don’t deal with Information too much. You post on Twitter, scroll the Instagram and order some take-out. Is it a right thing to say? I’m afraid it’s not. Look, when posting on social media you inform your followers about your political views, music you like or what you had for breakfast. Using Instagram to watch pictures of your friends partying or travelling, makes you the one who is being informed. Now you now that some people live better life than others. And finally, by using any food delivery application, you inform your favourite restaurant that you are hungry. And they know that big pizza and can of coke will make you feel better.
Summary
It should be now clear why IT fits well as a name for such space. Information is an entity upon witch the whole industry was built. Hardware and software are helpful when dealing with scale, but they are not mandatory for the Information to exist and being processed. Dijkstra’s famous sentence now seems to be more logical. Computers and science behind them are mutually inclusive, they drive each other. The way they work requires quite different approach than mechanical devices we knew so far. Funny thing is, this “new way” may create a need for some kind of specialized module, optimized to solve small amount of problems (but it does it extremely well). And this module will require some another science, because it unintentionally gave foundations for something completely new. Real Perpetuum Mobile.