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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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[-] valtia@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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.

[-] 9point6@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

The statement "this [guy] thinks the government uses SQL" demonstrates a complete and total lack of knowledge as to what SQL even is. Every government on the planet makes extensive and well documented use of it.

The initial statement I believe is down to a combination of the above and also the lack of domain knowledge around social security. The primary key on the social security table would be a composite key of both the SSN and a date of birth—duplicates are expected of just parts of the key.

If he knew the domain, he would know this isn't an issue. If he knew the technology he would be able to see the constraint and following investigation, reach the conclusion that it's not an issue.

The man continues to be a malignant moron

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The initial statement I believe is down to a combination of the above and also the lack of domain knowledge around social security. The primary key on the social security table would be a composite key of both the SSN and a date of birth—duplicates are expected of just parts of the key.

Since SSNs are never reused, what would be the purpose of using the SSN and birth date together as part of the primary key? I guess it is the one thing that isn't supposed to ever change (barring a clerical error) so I could see that as a good second piece of information, just not sure what it would be adding.

Note: if duplicate SSNs are accidentally issued my understanding is that they issue a new one to one of the people and I don't know how to find the start of the thread on twitter since I only use it when I accidentally click on a link to it.

https://www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html

Q20: Are Social Security numbers reused after a person dies?

A: No. We do not reassign a Social Security number (SSN) after the number holder's death. Even though we have issued over 453 million SSNs so far, and we assign about 5 and one-half million new numbers a year, the current numbering system will provide us with enough new numbers for several generations into the future with no changes in the numbering system.

[-] halcyonloon@midwest.social 1 points 4 months ago

Take this with a grain of salt as I'm not a dev, but do work on CMS reporting for a health information tech company. Depending on how the database is designed an SSN could appear in multiple tables.

In my experience reduplication happens as part of generating a report so that all relevant data related to a key and scope of the report can be gathered from the various tables.

[-] DahGangalang@infosec.pub 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

A given SSN appearing in multiple tables actually makes sense. To someone not familiar with SQL (i.e. at about my level of understanding), I could see that being misinterpreted as having multiple SSN repeated "in the database".

Of all the comments ao far, I find yours the most compelling.

[-] RabbitBBQ@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It's more than just SQL. Social Security Numbers can be re-used over time. It is not a unique identifier by itself.

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[-] rational_lib@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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.

[-] DahGangalang@infosec.pub 1 points 4 months ago

Thanks for genuine response. Lol, most who interpret my question that way you did don't seem interested in a good faith discussion. But ol' boy is def tripping if he thinks SQL isn't used in the government.

Big thing I'm intending to pry 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).

[-] Garlicsquash@lemmings.world 4 points 4 months ago

Having never seen the database schema myself, my read is that the SSN is used as a primary key in one table, and many other tables likely use that as a foreign key. He probably doesn't understand that foreign keys are used as links and should not be de-duplicated, as that breaks the key relationship in a relational database. As others have mentioned, even in the main table there are probably reused or updated SSNs that would then be multiple rows that have timestamps and/or Boolean flags for current/expired.

[-] spark947@lemm.ee 3 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] DahGangalang@infosec.pub 1 points 4 months ago

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).

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Well, if someone changes their name you'd add a new record with the same SSN to hold their new name, that way it keeps the records consistent with the paperwork; old papers say their old name and reference the retired record, new papers use their new name and reference the new record.

You can use the SSN as the key to find all records associated with a person, it doesn't have to be a single row per SSN, in fact that would make the data harder to manage and less accurate.

E.g. if someone changes their last name after getting married, it could be useful to be able to have their current and former name in the database for reference.

[-] darkmarx@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

"The government" is multiple agencies and departments. There is no single computer system, database, mainframe, or file store that the entire US goverment uses. There is no standard programming language used. There is no standard server configuration. Each agency is different. Each software project is different.

When someone says the government doesn't use sql, they don't know what they are talking about. It could be refering to the fact that many government systems are ancient mainframe applications that store everything in vsam. But it is patently false that the government doesn't use sql. I've been on a number of government contracts over the years, spanning multiple agencies. MsSQL was used in all but one.

Furthermore, some people share SSNs, they are not unique. It's a common misconception that they are, but anyone working on a government software learns this pretty quickly. The fact that it seems to be a big shock goes to show that he doesn't know what he is doing and neither do the people reporting to him.

Not only is he failing to understand the technology, he is failing to understand the underlying data he is looking at.

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[-] Generica@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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.

[-] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago

I work for a crown corp in Canada we have, off the top of my head, about 800 MSSQL, Oracle, MySQL/MariaDB, Postgres databases across the org (I manage our CMDB). Musk is a retard. The world runs on SQL.

He wouldn't know this though because he's a techbro that builds apps with MongoDB b cause he doesn't understand what normalizing data is and why SQL is the best option for 99.9999999% of applications.

Fucking idiots.

[-] jve@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

As a former DOD contractor I can also confirm we built whole platforms that use Oracle (shudder) SQL

[-] CodeHead@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

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.)

[-] dan1101@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago

The ignorance of Elon is truly concerning, but somehow the worst part to me is Elon calling someone a retard for pointing that out.

[-] weew@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

He called a rescuer a pedophile for trying to rescue children...

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Ableist, racist white supremacist doing their ableist-racist-white-supremacist thing.

[-] TehWorld@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Clearly the solution is to just use a big Excel spreadsheet.

[-] valkyre09@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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

[-] TehWorld@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

It makes a pretty good calculator. 🧮

[-] arotrios@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] spark947@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago

Excel is accounting workbook software, it is not suitable for data storage. Although people certainly use it that way.

[-] missingno@fedia.io 1 points 4 months ago

Because SQL is everywhere. If Musk knew what it was, he would know that the government absolutely does use it.

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this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2025
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