Really, really deleting something

["Mike O." <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Did you ever notice that, in a modern enterprise data-processing
system, that nothing ever gets deleted anymore?

Several times clients have told me "You didn't document the Delete
function" and I have to point out to them that their system doesn't
delete anything, it just changes some status flag, even if the function
is named Delete. Sometimes I even have to remind them to write an
Undelete function.

Yeah, I still index it as Delete. But I feel obliged to describe
literally what the Delete function does, and usually it doesn't delete
anything.

That's because either:

 - There is some legal requirement to save the data for auditing, or

 - Nobody throws data away anymore; it can be data-mined, or repackaged
and sold. 

I have two credit-card accounts that I don't want, with banks I never
signed up with. The banks purchased my accounts *with zero balances*
and continue to hammer me with marketing. I don't want to be in their
database at all, but that is not possible. They cannot delete my
account; they can only inactivate it.

Not to mention all the emails that people think they deleted (those
people are usually referred to as 'defendants').

Mike O.

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