Why do we have codes? Like for what purpose?

The only reason to have codes is to provide a general line of information as to what structures will likely cause catastrophe and which ones will not.

So essentially it means if you build something without thinking of these things listed here it's going to break and hurt people. We have codes because it's information that helps everyone by enforcing concepts onto our structures in society. Part of a governing bodies job is to enforce these codes so that people don't try to subvert them for "reasons".

I bring all of this up because as a software developer who has worked on financial data the gif posted is a great example of why design codes and structure are needed. In the example above we are viewing how the lack of adhering to design principals causes physical catastrophes. In the data world this can also happen in a sense but you can't see it happening.

There are no enforced codes for data though. They try but it just doesn't exist. When I try to explain to people why that is so fucking terrifying I try and use building codes as an example. I really want everyone to know that if their financial data was a structure it looks like the one on the left. Thrown together for the cheapest price while ignoring catastrophic design concepts.

For example in database design we talk about the concepts of normalization. If you are storing prices in a ledger does it make sense to list the same item in 2 ledgers for 2 different prices? No, if you did then you would expect a mistake to be made because that's confusing. Keeping one location for information prevents referring to the wrong information. You can design databases to use this principal and only ever have any bit of data in 1 spot. If you do not do this then your database allows things to exist in more than one location. This is unacceptable in terms of designs not falling apart later but we let it happen. If it's just your kids school schedule maybe that's not a big deal. But when I say this happen in industry sometimes it resulted in people getting saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt that wasn't theirs. The reason it happened is because the system did not ensure normalization and other structures to prevent it from happening. Since it was not designed to withstand corruption it becomes corrupt because it can't not.

I really wish people could see it like I do, the same reason we enforce building codes to prevent disaster we do not in anyway enforce data codes. Companies are taking you for suckers with these systems and you won't know unless your data winds up in the glitch russian roulette.

TL;DR Data structures have rules they need to follow to prevent collapse, just like physical structures. While we are great at building codes we are terrible at data. Your data for most companies looks like the left building when it should absolutely be designed like the right