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May 10, 2006

Does Heaven need metadata?

I suppose if one thinks about the job of St. Peter then the answer is obvious; yes. The simplest meta-model would be from the Baptist since all St. Peter would need is the name and Save Date or Save_Date or SAVDAT. Other religions that weigh your good and bad deeds would require a much larger meta-model and various unstructured type documentation. Assuming that the facts of the case will help decide the deed classification, then this type of information could be crucial. Other more complex religions that have Duty requirements would requie additional databases to help hold the prescribed tasks, times, and details of forgiveness. I suppose we could apply normalization of the tasks which would save space but they may not have storage or network issues.

Considering that there are around 106 Billion people that ever lived this could be the largest metadata store ever. The good news is that there does not seem to be a need to exchange metadata to the other place since souls are not exchanged. Maybe one can argue that if St. Peters says no, but I think if you show up at the other location they will accept you no what your metadata is. Some religions have holding locations where you spend time before earning your way to the pearly gates. So some level of business rule exchange may be needed to ensure the status is reported correctly.

Once inside then maybe additional metadata needs to be captured on just what heaven is for you or better yet what job function you will be performing. I have to assume not all of us can be Arc Angels or the helper type angels that we see on TV. Job functions, performance statistics, and schedules will need to be kept; all of which will require a heavy dose of metadata to keep straight. Of course, with the Gospel of Judas and the Da Vinci Code coming out more educational type jobs will be in order which might require additional data stores and integration feeds.

My answer, yes there is metadata in Heaven!

:-}

Posted by Todd at May 10, 2006 6:17 PM