Haha. Something like this actually happened to me. My son's school was using some third party system to organize classes, but he created a teacher account and invited all his classmates to join his fake classroom, which made all the students really confused.  The teacher was upset, but I was like, "Does the platform not have any checks on who can create a teacher account??"


couldn't help but think of this

https://xkcd.com/327/

nichro

Sure, but..... 

DELETE records where username is NULL ;

is not the same as:

DELETE records where username is 'NULL';

SQL treats the first one as true null, but it treats the second as the string 'NULL'.

Or am I taking crazy pills today???

can confirm. Thought I was being clever/early by reserving the `null` username for a no-kyc custodial account. Account disappeared one day (with my sats). Emailed the devs but they couldn't find any record of the account ever existing.

Someone probably ran a `DELETE records where username is NULL` and my acct got wiped. This is why its also important to log CHANGES to the database in a separate table or logging system. Or keep robust backups of the DB. That way if someone makes a mistake, you can at least investigate and resolve any missing data.

nullcount

Even the inventor of NULL, Tony Hoare, called it his Billion Dollar Mistake. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybrQvs4x0Ps

TheMorningStar

There are even worse things than 'nothing works': [How a 'NULL' License Plate Landed One Hacker in Ticket Hell](https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/)

Scroogey

Nontra Yantaprasert couldn’t wait to take her husband’s shorter and easier-to-pronounce last name. She didn’t know what kinds of problems it would cause.

His last name is Null, the same word used by computer scientists to mean “no value” or “invalid value.” The Nulls of the world, it turns out, endure a lifetime of website bouncebacks, processing errors and declarations by customer-service representatives that their accounts don’t exist.

After becoming a Null, she was due to travel to India in 2014 on a nonrefundable flight for a friend’s marriage, but her visa hadn’t arrived in the mail. The Indian consulate told her it had tried multiple times but the computer system couldn’t process her last name, she said. A week before the wedding, she was still waiting.

“I had to mentally come to terms with not being able to go,” said Nontra, a 41-year-old clothing designer in Burbank, Calif. She finally received the documents the day before her flight. Since then, she has come up with workarounds to ease the burden of being a Null.

tech

> Nontra Yantaprasert couldn’t wait to take her husband’s shorter and easier-to-pronounce last name. She didn’t know what kinds of problems it would cause.
>
> His last name is Null, the same word used by computer scientists to mean “no value” or “invalid value.” The Nulls of the world, it turns out, endure a lifetime of website bouncebacks, processing errors and declarations by customer-service representatives that their accounts don’t exist.
>
> After becoming a Null, she was due to travel to India in 2014 on a nonrefundable flight for a friend’s marriage, but her visa hadn’t arrived in the mail. The Indian consulate told her it had tried multiple times but the computer system couldn’t process her last name, she said. A week before the wedding, she was still waiting. 
>
> “I had to mentally come to terms with not being able to go,” said Nontra, a 41-year-old clothing designer in Burbank, Calif. She finally received the documents the day before her flight. Since then, she has come up with workarounds to ease the burden of being a Null. 
