Lecture one continued

The next level up from the Byte is a file. A file, as it is stored on our computer would be a very long series of binary code and this code would be representative of either text, an image or a sound etc. In order for us to see these objects in the format we are expecting we need to open them with a program designed to read them, for example text needs to be interpreted by a word processor. When saving our file we assign it a file extension, this is a system of labeling so the computer knows which program it will need to open the file. Opening a file with the wrong program will make it illegible, we saw the result of this in the exercises in the lab, when we opened a document with Microsoft formatting in a text editing program the program could not make sense of the formatting language and what was displayed was gibberish.

It is then possible to collate our files into documents, a good example of a document would be a dissertation that includes text, graphs and images that are all seperate files in different locations. An advantage of the document-centered view of information is that the individual files can be edited interdependently in there required programs and will automatically appear in their new design in the dissertation.