garbage in, garbage out

George Fuechsel, an early IBM programmer and instructor, is generally given credit for coining the term. Fuechsel is said to have used "garbage in, garbage out" as a concise way of reminding his students that a computer just processes what it is given. The term is now widely used in computer science classes, IT services and elsewhere. In fact, GIGO is sometimes used to refer to situations in the analog world, such as a faulty decision made as a result of incomplete information.

A variation on the term, "garbage in, gospel out," refers to a tendency to put unwarranted faith in the accuracy of computer-generated data.

Read more about garbage in, garbage out: - Kehinde Eseyin's SAP Library blog post explains the importance of stringent data quality management to avoid implementation pitfalls. - Sean Igo explains how worse-than-average spelling errors lead to worse-than-average spell check errors.

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