Re: SQL Humor
From: Dan <dan_at_nospam.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:58:56 -0500
Message-ID: <5lnNe.34$C92.6557_at_news.uswest.net>
>
>
> Evolutionary, not drastic. An extra digit in the serial section of the
> number would do it and not effect the validation by group number. The
> nice thing aobut industry standards is that they have a migration path
> when they change. Ever what ahppens when an IDENTITY runs out and
> wraps? I was surprised at how often it can happen -- a bad routine
> keeps failing in a loop, increment the exposed counter and makes huge
> gaps. Since there is no audit trail on IDENTITY numbers, nobody knows
> until you ge to a failure point.
>
> Look at how the UPC codes are moving from 10 to 13 digits. See any
> retail stores closing down because of it? Is P&G out of business?
> Hallmark cards alone has over 10 million products to track and they
> have used the industry standard barcodes for decades.
>
> Talk about being old, do you remember "The Anti-Digit Dialing League"
> that got national press when we went from exchange abbreviations to
> all digit dialing? When we went to ten digit dialing in major metro
> areas, nobody said a word.
>
> Or the various Anti-ZIP code groups? But when we went to ZIP+4, nobody
> said a word.
>
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:58:56 -0500
Message-ID: <5lnNe.34$C92.6557_at_news.uswest.net>
On 8/19/2005 10:49 AM, --CELKO-- wrote:
>>>but I believe I could live to see us run out of SSNs unless the Feds do something DRASTIC, like add a digit. <<
>
>
> Evolutionary, not drastic. An extra digit in the serial section of the
> number would do it and not effect the validation by group number. The
> nice thing aobut industry standards is that they have a migration path
> when they change. Ever what ahppens when an IDENTITY runs out and
> wraps? I was surprised at how often it can happen -- a bad routine
> keeps failing in a loop, increment the exposed counter and makes huge
> gaps. Since there is no audit trail on IDENTITY numbers, nobody knows
> until you ge to a failure point.
>
> Look at how the UPC codes are moving from 10 to 13 digits. See any
> retail stores closing down because of it? Is P&G out of business?
> Hallmark cards alone has over 10 million products to track and they
> have used the industry standard barcodes for decades.
>
> Talk about being old, do you remember "The Anti-Digit Dialing League"
> that got national press when we went from exchange abbreviations to
> all digit dialing? When we went to ten digit dialing in major metro
> areas, nobody said a word.
>
> Or the various Anti-ZIP code groups? But when we went to ZIP+4, nobody
> said a word.
>
The beauty of a RDMS is that one can change VARCHAR(9) to VARCHAR(10) and it is no big deal. Client programs keep running with maybe light display issues. Received on Fri Aug 19 2005 - 17:58:56 CEST