Computer data processing is any process that uses a computer program to enter data and summarise, analyse or otherwise convert data into usable information. It involves recording, analysing, sorting, summarising, calculating, disseminating and storing data. Because data are most useful when well-presented and actually informative, data-processing systems are often referred to as information systems. Nevertheless, the terms are roughly synonymous, performing similar conversions; data-processing systems typically manipulate raw data into information, and likewise information systems typically take raw data as input to produce information as output.
Data processing may or may not be distinguished from data conversion, when the process is merely to convert data to another format, and does not involve any data manipulation.
Read more about Computer Data Processing: Scientific Data Processing, Commercial Data Processing, Data Analysis, Processing, Elements of Data Processing
Famous quotes containing the words computer and/or data:
“Family life is not a computer program that runs on its own; it needs continual input from everyone.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)
“This city is neither a jungle nor the moon.... In long shot: a cosmic smudge, a conglomerate of bleeding energies. Close up, it is a fairly legible printed circuit, a transistorized labyrinth of beastly tracks, a data bank for asthmatic voice-prints.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)