Unifying Business, Data, and Code

Chapter 5. A Universal Language for Data

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Humans require fluency in a common language in order to communicate complex ideas. In the same way, breaking the data silos of an organization requires every party to use a common language to talk about the structure, semantics, and governance of data. As we saw in Chapter 4, a data definition that describes these concepts in an unambiguous way is called a schema, and it is an essential part of any data-driven strategy.

While there is no shortage of options out there, we choose JSON Schema as our standard data language of choice. In this chapter, you will learn the basics of JSON Schema and how to read and understand any JSON Schema. This chapter purposely takes a modern top-down, vocabulary first approach to teaching you how to think about JSON Schema.

Over the course of this book, you will gain expertise on JSON Schema and be able to use it as the cornerstone of your data-centric innovation initiatives. We will exemplify how schemas can provide immediate value by using them to render basic web forms for our fictitious Intelligence.AI online coffee company.

Note

This chapter builds on Chapter 2 and is aimed at the more technical audience interested in implementing data products. To continue learning about data alignment in a business sense, you can move to Chapter 6.

What Is JSON Schema?

JSON Schema is a set of specifications that introduce a declarative ...