Example of Discrete Stable Units

In another blog post, Structuring Systems into Discrete Stable Units, I described a system of what amounted to information "Lego Bricks".  In this blog post, I want to walk you through what I am talking about.

I will use my PROOF working  proof of concept.

Here is the machine readable and machine interpretable global standard XBRL. That is XML which machines can easily read and interpret.  That first link is the "instance" or the facts of a report. Here is the model which a machine can get to from the report itself. Here are some of the "conditions" (a.k.a. assertions, restrictions, constraints) such as the accounting equation which the report MUST be consistent with. And here is the underlying base reporting framework with which the report is described and "fenced" or "bounded", the "guardrails" that specifies what the report MUST adhere to. This is the same information in machine readable form.

Now this is what a human would use to make use of that same information above.

Alternatively, this is another different piece of software that a human could use to work with exactly the same information.


And here is a third piece of software which makes use of exactly the same underlying machine readable and interpretable application, but rendered for a human to work with in a completely different software application created by a completely different software engineer. (Here is another screen shot, this is a desktop application so I cannot give you a link)

Alternatively, while this alternative is not an as impressive human readable rendering; what it provides is a set of HTML pages with a summary of the verification of the information in the report and details about the report and report model. Sure, this GUI/UX could be better but to focus on that is to miss the point. Focus on understanding the information in the report and report model and how that is detailed; all that is generated from this report and this theory.


Note that while I am showing you the capability to be able to READ information; this exact same capability exists for WRITING that same information.  One version of information, in the form of a knowledge graph that can then be projected into a READ or WRITE interface interpretable by human users of exactly the same copy of the information.

For contrast, I am providing one final technical oriented application.  The screenshot below is from an free open source application called Arelle. This application understands the physical technical format of XBRL, but it does not understand business report or financial report semantics as thoroughly as the applications shown previously.


While you might think that what you are looking like is a toy; it is not a toy.  Here is a set of examples that go from the very basic "accounting equation" and get progressively more complicated leading up to the IFRS for SMEs reporting framework published by the IFRS Foundation which I have enhanced, enriched, and augmented to overcome deficiencies in that official version published by the IFRS Foundation. And here is an IFRS for SMEs model financial statement. (Here are all the supporting files.)

Finally, this Showcase of Capabilities, helps you grasp the full power of these discrete stable units of information, these Lego bricks of information.

Now, think of the electronic spreadsheet. Most of us don't really grasp the hidden costs of the electronic spreadsheet. Many think the electronic spreadsheet is the only possible tool available to solve every problem under the sun.  But what if that was not true? What if there actually was the possibility of another way? Not a replacement for the electronic spreadsheet; a supplement.

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