Re: Does high quality data contain traceability information?

On Thu, May 11, 2023 at 11:18 AM Roger L Costello <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Hi Folks,
>
> Traceability = who/what is the source of the data.
>
> Do you put traceability information in your XML documents?
>
>
Isn't change tracking, as provided by modern source control management
tools like GIT, sufficient?

Seems it is all dependent on the definition. Change tracking is more
similar to independent registering of significant events/transactions and
could fall in the same group with security camera  recordings (and
maintaining database logs). This happens regardless of whether or not we
want it, and frees us from having to invest our own resources into it.

Also, this eliminates the problem of "trustworthiness" and it is good that
this is orthogonal/independent from the event/data space.

Depending on the definition of what is a "significant" event that must be
tracked and how a composite significant event can be constructed by
elementary events step by step, the currently existing tracking mechanisms
may, or may not be adequate. There are mentions of loopholes even in
well-known and established accounting practices.

To summarize, I believe that traceability must be independent from the
stream of data, and maybe even invisible to any data provider, even though
it is "always there". "Traceability" may totally disappear should the
definition and understanding of "significance" change in a major way.


Thanks,
Dimitre




> Consider this XML document about a runway at an airport in Jamaica:
>
>       <airport>
>          <name>NORMAN MANLEY INTL</name>
>          <runway>
>             <runwayLength>08909</runwayLength>
>          </runway>
>       </airport>
>
> Who/what is the source of runwayLength=08909? No idea. There is no trace
> information in that XML document.
>
> Further, if there was traceability information, what would it be?
> Information about a person? A document? A country? An organization?
>
> I am inclined to believe that traceability information is not useful. What
> do you think? Do you put traceability information in your XML documents? If
> yes, what kind of traceability information?
>
> /Roger
>
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