Archiving Deleted Data

As a Developer, there is one of the rules of programming I hate the most, data archiving. I remember when I defended on our thesis to the panels, they asked, “What happens if I deleted this one?”, And I answered, “It will be deleted in database Ma’am.” Then a sudden question asked, “Do you hear the term archive?” A question mark on my face triggered. I told them that I heard the term but didn’t focus on its meaning.

As time passed by, the word “archive” means a lot to me, especially when I’m doing some projects in my work. I am doing a hard-coded project which gave me the opportunity to create a feature that can delete; then I did what I’ve done in our thesis, I didn’t archive first and deleted the data again immediately in the database. Then, the Product Owner said to me, “it should not be deleted right away, the status must only change to trash.” I thought those deleted data has nothing to do with the project, it will just occupy another space and slow down the program.

Data archiving is the process wherein the unused or occasionally used data will be moved into separate storage. The separation of data will be the way to have the primary data more space in saving. Thus, it negates my thinking before, and I learned that the proper way of deleting a file is to archive first. In some systems, deleting ability is not present in the functionality because they believe that the data is not necessarily needed to be deleted, it can only be updated because of security. There are lots of technique when it comes to data archiving, and one of those deleted data archiving which to protect the user from accidental deletion.