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I'm a tech interested guy. I've touched SQL once or twice, but wasn't able to really make sense of it. That combined with not having a practical use leaves SQL as largely a black box in my mind (though I am somewhat familiar with technical concepts in databasing).
With that, I keep seeing [pic related] as proof that Elon Musk doesn't understand SQL.
Can someone give me a technical explanation for how one would come to that conclusion? I'd love if you could pass technical documentation for that.
To me I'm not really sure what his reply even means. I think it's some attempt at a joke (because of course the government uses SQL), but I figure the joke can be broken down into two potential jokes that fail for different, embarrassing reasons:
Interpretation 1: The government is so advanced it doesn't use SQL - This interpretation is unlikely given that Elon is trying to portray the government as in need of reform. But it would make more sense if coming from a NoSQL type who thinks SQL needs to be removed from everywhere. NoSQL Guy is someone many software devs are familiar with who takes the sometimes-good idea of avoiding SQL and takes it way too far. Elon being NoSQL Guy would be dumb, but not as dumb as the more likely interpretation #2.
Interpretation 2: The government is so backward it doesn't use SQL - I think this is the more likely interpretation as it would be consistent with Elon's ideology, but it really falls flat because SQL is far from being cutting-edge. There has kind of been a trend of moving away from SQL (with considerable controversy) over the last 10 years or so and it's really surprising that Elon seems completely unaware of that.
There can be duplicate SSNs due to name changes of an individual, that's the easiest answer. In general, it's common to just add a new record in cases where a person's information changes so you can retain the old record(s) and thus have a history for a person (look up Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCD)). That's how the SSA is able to figure out if a person changed their gender, they just look up that information using the same SSN and see if the gender in the new application is different from the old data.
Another accusation Elon made was that payments are going to people missing SSNs. The best explanation I have for that is that various state departments have their own on-premise databases and their own structure and design that do not necessarily mirror the federal master database. There are likely some databases where the SSN field is setup to accept strings only, since in real life, your SSN on your card actually has dashes, those dashes make the number into a string. If the SSN is stored as a string in a state database, then when it's brought over to the federal database (assuming the federal db is using a number field instead of text), there can be some data loss, resulting in a NULL.
It's an insanely idiotic thing to say. Federal government IT is myriad, and done at a per agency level. Any relational database system, which the federal government uses plenty of, uses SQL in one way or another. Elon doesn't know what he is talking about at all, and is being an ultimate idiot about this. Even in the context of mainframe projects thatif we are giving elong the benefit of doubt about referring to, most COBOL shoprbibknow have adapted to addressing internal data records using an SQL interface, although obviously in that legacy world it is insanely fractured and arcane.
Yeah, obviously ol' boy is tripping if he thinks SQL isn't used in the government.
Big thing I'm prying at is whether there would be a legitimate purpose to have duplicated SSNs in the database (thus showing the First Bro doesn't understand how SQL works).
The US government pays lots of money to Oracle to use their database. And it's not for BerkleyDB either. (Poor sleepy cat). Oracle provides them support for their relational databases... and those databases use... SQL.
Now if Musk tries to end the Oracle contracts, then Oracle's lawyers will go after his lawyers and I'm a gonna get me some popcorn. (But we all know that won't happen in any timeline... Elon gotta keep Larry happy.)
Yeah, obviously ol' boy is tripping if he thinks SQL isn't used in the government.
Big thing I'm prying at is whether there would be a legitimate purpose to have duplicated SSNs in the database (thus showing the First Bro doesn't understand how SQL works).
Because everyone hates IPv6?
Why not reuse SSN that are no longer are in service for whatever reason?
Clearly the solution is to just use a big Excel spreadsheet.
In our company I’m friends with one of the lead devs. He once told me “no matter what way you look at it, excel is never the answer” lol I’m sure he was a bit biased, but I’ve seen my fair share of macro-ridden abominations over the years
Excel is accounting workbook software, it is not suitable for data storage. Although people certainly use it that way.
It makes a pretty good calculator. 🧮
It's an amazing tool if only one person is updating / maintaining the file. The moment collaboration starts, you're all fucked. I'm currently maintaining one that I inherited that is at least 10 years old and comes with a 50 page instruction manual on how to run it every month... that then gets posted to a shared drive where anyone can edit.
And then the rest of the month is spent explaining to the end users how they fucked it up this time.
On the flip side, I've also built sheets that could parse data between Nav, MySQL, and SQL ERP systems with tables of over 5million rows each on a single button refresh that ran flawlessly for years... because I was the only maintainer and the sheets were locked from accepting changes from other users.
The ignorance of Elon is truly concerning, but somehow the worst part to me is Elon calling someone a retard for pointing that out.
Ableist, racist white supremacist doing their ableist-racist-white-supremacist thing.
It doesn’t matter anymore to the trumpers. They are eating this shit up like it’s thanksgiving
He is saying the US government doesn't use structured databases.
At least 90% of all databases have a structure.
Yeah, obviously ol' boy is tripping if he thinks SQL isn't used in the government.
Big thing I'm prying at is whether there would be a legitimate purpose to have duplicated SSNs in the database (thus showing the First Bro doesn't understand how SQL works).
As someone explained in another comment, you often duplicate information due to rules around cardinality to gain improvements in retrieval an. structure. I would be pretty worried if SSSNs were being used as a a widepread primary key in any set of tables - those should generally be UUIDs that can be optimized for gashing while avoiding collisions.
Even if we are being generous to Elon, we could assume that social security payments are processed on mainframes given how many have to go out and the legacy nature of the program. Most mainframe shops I know have adapted an SQL interface for records in some capacity, but who knows what he is looking at.
Government federal IT is done at a per agency basis. I would say oracle database is pretty much the most licensed piece of software the government does use outside of Redhat Linux and windows desktop.
As a data engineer for the past 20+ years: There is absolutely no fucking way that the us gov doesnt use sql. This is what shows that he’s stupid not only in sql but in data science in general.
Regarding duplications: its more nuanced than those statements each side put. There can be duplications in certain situations. In some situations there shouldnt be. And I dont really see how duplications in a db is open to fraud.
Well we heard what the Whitehouse press secretary has to say about the fraud they found 2 days ago. They found massive amounts and she brought receipts! All of them were examples of money being spent that disagree with Trump's new policies. Like money spent on DEI initiatives and aid sent to countries in Africa to help slow the spread of HIV. That receipt was for a laughable $57,000.
Then when asked how any of it was fraud she said, well they consider that fraud because it wasn't used to help Americans.
So the 27 year old married to a billionaire 32 years older than her is complaining that the money wasnt directly spent on her gold digging ass, and if it's not spent directly on her, it's fraud.
Biggest disgrace of a government that has ever existed.
Yeah, obviously ol' boy is tripping if he thinks SQL isn't used in the government.
Big thing I'm prying at is whether there would be a legitimate purpose to have duplicated SSNs in the database (thus showing the First Bro doesn't understand how SQL works).
It doesn't matter without scope. Are we looking at a database of SSNs? tax records? A sign in log? The social security number database might require uniques in some way, but tax records could be the same person over multiple years. A sign in gives a unique identifier but you could be signing in every day.
It's like saying a car VIN shows up multiple times in a database. Where? What database? Was it sold? Tickets? Registered every year?
This is nothing more than a "assume I mean immigrants or tax fraud and get mad!" inflammatory statement with no proof or reason.
If it's used as an identifier to link together rows from different tables. Also known as "joining" tables. SSN (with birthdate) is a unique identifier, and so it's natural to choose as a primary/foreign key.
Oh yeah? How about SCD? I bet all ssn are in an SCD.
It really is baffling trying to make sense of what he is saying. It's like the only explanation that makes any sense at all is that he has no idea what he is talking about. Even if he knew just cursory knowledge about database cardinality you wouldn't say stuff so stupid.