this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Musk's statement about the government not using SQL is false. I worked for FEMA for fourteen years, a decade of which was as a Reports Analyst. I wrote Oracle SQL+ code to pull data from a database and put it into spreadsheets. I know, I know. You're shocked that Elon Musk is wrong. Please remain calm.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Elon Musk is the walking talking embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

I'm still learning SQL, so if I'm out of line someone please correct me, but, the gist of it, is that SQL (Structured Query Language) is a language used in pretty much all relational databases, which with something like the Social Security database is almost guaranteed. Having duplicates of information in a relational database is not a sign of fraud, or anything shady going on.

When you're born, your name, along with your SSN and any other relevant info is put into the database, later in life, say you change your name, the original name, along with your SSN will stay there, and a new line in the database would be added with your new name, along with your SSN again (a duplicate) that way the database has a reference point between old and new name, and keeps all your information lined up between the two.

If you were to get rid of all of that duplicate information, anyone who's ever had a name change, been married, etc. It will cause chaos in the database, with hundreds of millions of entries that now have no relation to anything, and are now just basically dead ends.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Its because the comments he made are inconsistent with common conventions in data engineering.

  1. It is very common not to deduplicate data and instead just append rows, The current value is the most recent and all the old ones are simply historical. That way you don't risk losing data and you have an entire history.
    • whilst you could do some trickery to deduplicate the data it does create more complexity. There's an old saying with ZFS: "Friends don't let friends dedupe" And it's much the same here.
    • compression is usually good enough. It will catch duplicated data and deal with it in a fairly efficient way, not as efficient as deduplication but it's probably fine and it's definitely a lot simpler
  2. Claiming the government does not use SQL
    • It's possible they have rolled their own solution or they are using MongoDB Or something but this would be unlikely and wouldn't really refute the initial claim
    • I believe many other commenters noted that it probably is MySQL anyway.

Basically what he said is ~~incoherent~~ inconsistent with typical practices among data engineers ~~to anybody who has worked with larger data.~~

In terms of using SQL, it's basically just a more reliable and better Excel that doesn't come with a default GUI.

If you need to store data, It's almost always best throw it into a SQLite database Because it keeps it structured. It's standardised and it can be used from any programming language.

However, many people use excel because they don't have experience with programming languages.

Get chatGpt to help you write a PyQT GUI for a SQLite database and I think you would develop a high level understanding for how the pieces fit together

Edit: @zalgotext made a good point.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Great explanation, but I have a tiny, tiny, minor nit-pick

Basically what he said is incoherent to anybody who has worked with larger data.

I'm being pedantic, but I disagree with your wording. As a backend dev, I work with relational databases a ton, and what Musk said wasn't incomprehensible to me, it just sounded like something a first year engineer fresh out of college would say.

Again, the rest of your explanation is spot on, absolutely no notes, but I do think the distinction between "adult making up incomprehensible bullshit" and "adult cosplaying as a baby engineer who thinks he's hot shit but doesn't know anything beyond surface level stuff" is important.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Everything they don't understand (which is nearly everything) is either God or fraud. Do with that information what you will.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Well, here it's Cake or Death! Choose carefully.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How come republicans keep saying that doggy is going to expose all the fraud in the government but yet the biggest fraud with 37 felonies is president? What the actual fuck to these people think?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

That dipshit does not even know how his dear friend at Oracle made tons of money in the past decades.

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