Data scientists have been attempting to influence the creation of a new data type for storage engines relating to time. Currently, we have data types based around date, time and the combination, date and time. If you wish to know something about the durability of those features, it requires an additional instance. So, if a fact is true from Monday through Friday, it requires to date properties to represent the fact.
Some folks are recommending an additional factor to a date or a time data type, duration. Instead of having a date of Monday, you could have a date of Monday, spanning until Friday. Or we could have a time of 8:00 AM spanning until 5:00 PM.
This new data type would then be able to compare similar data types for overlap, return a new instance of the same data type, starting when the two intersect, with a duration continuing until the intersection of both terminates.
A Comparison could be made with traditional, puncticular data types, determining if the point is between the start and the duration of our new durable data type.
This new data type would be quite useful in data mining. It would also be useful in any form of data storage including SQL and NoSql. I can foresee value in programming languages as well.
Do you like this concept? Share your comments to get into the discussion.
Cheers,
Ben