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.

    • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      The sheer size of the federal government and its age would mean there are thousands of databases out there. Some may be so old that they predate RDBMS/SQL.

      That alone makes his comment come from a place of ignorance. Of course it’s confident ignorance. The worst kind.

    • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Lol talk about burying the lede… The issue here is that the government absolutely uses SQL to traverse a DB and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot.

      • DahGangalang@infosec.pubOP
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        8 days ago

        Naw, I definitely meant to be asking about duplication of data in databases (vs if the government actually uses SQL).

        Sorry to have communicated that so poorly. Everyone seems to be taking the angle you’re arguing though. Guess I’ll need to work on that.

    • orcrist@lemm.ee
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      Elon Musk is also an idiot. He thinks he’s smart enough to quickly understand complex situations and complex problems about which he knows next to nothing, within just a few minutes.

      Most people would only try to claim that level of understanding in areas with which they have professional experience or about which they’re extremely geeky. He does it with everything, and nobody can be an expert in everything, and everybody knows that except for narcissistists.

      I suppose for non-tech people it might be convenient to assume that because someone knows something about some kind of tech, they therefore know a lot about all kinds of tech, and the reality is that’s just not true. There are so many fields that are totally different. But if it did, actually he would look even more idiotic, because Twitter is a train wreck, so clearly he’s incompetent in tech field, right?

      • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
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        8 days ago

        The SSN is 9 digits long; so technically they would have to start re-using them after the billionth one. Given the current population size, and how many people have been born/died since its implementation - it’s fair to say they haven’t had to re-use any figures yet.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        But I was assured he was a materials engineer, rocket scientist, computer programmer, and businessman extraordinaire!

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      Elin musk is a (criminal) scammer, he always has been.

      He was fired for incompetence from his own company

      Pretty much everything he’s promised for every company he has headed had been a lie. Tesla full self driving? Lie. Hyperloop? All lies to successful kill high speed rail and start a movement that wasted billions of dollars including tax payer money. Even SpaceX, the least shit of all, is shit. Once you really look at it, its all promises with no results and lots of cheering when millions of tax payer dollars -yet again- blow up in the sky.

      The guy has one quality: convincing people that he’s smart even though he literally doesn’t know shit

    • Aeao@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      I’m not arguing that Elon musk is anything but an absolute tool.

      SS numbers have 999 million options. Are we already repeating them?