Hope you don't mind, but I have some fuzzy thoughts on datatypes, smart
decisions, column lengths, and maybe the ghost of Y2K. How many DBAs
use number datatypes to hold Social Security Numbers? How many use
varchar(9) or char(9)? I always use the latter because the guru once
told me never to use a numeric datatype if I wasn't going to do the
math. Now, I wonder. There are about 270,000,000 people in the US of A,
each with their own unique SSN. Say another 50,000,000 to 100,000,000
IDs are already accounted for for one reason or another. 10 to the 9th
is only 1 billion, so nearly half the possible SSNs are used up
already. Folks, I'm closer to retirement age than whipper-snapper age
but I believe I could live to see us run out of SSNs unless the Feds do
something DRASTIC, like add a digit. Then what are we going to do?
Those who ignored the guru are probably sitting pretty. A BIGINT has
plenty of room to grow. All those char and varchar tables, however, are
going to need rewriting. Doesn't that sound familiar?
Received on Thu Aug 18 2005 - 21:07:31 CDT
