The Secret Life of B-Trees

NEW YORK CITY, New York – The following conversation that took place a short while ago has thrown new light into the poorly understood concept of B-trees:

Vandoofus : Are you doubting my ability to retrieve
            and transfer a simple phone number?
Kahuna    : Indeed I am... You couldn't do a simple
            index lookup without mucking up the
            whole B-tree
Vandoofus : X-(
Kahuna    : :-p
Vandoofus : What’s a B-tree?
Vandoofus : Bamboo?
Vandoofus : Boxing?
Vandoofus : Buffalo?
Kahuna    : Baboon
Vandoofus : Ah
Vandoofus : I didn't know baboons grew on trees
Kahuna    : Oh? Where did you think they grew? X-(

This is just great, Doofi! Now I’ve got a picture in my head of baboons trying to resolve a primary key constraint. Worse, how is a balanced baboon-tree going to work? Does it mean that there will be an equal number of baboons on each side of the tree?

Oh, curse my associative memory! I just remembered the Pythagorean theorem: the squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.

By Codd, Doofi, I swear I’m going to thump you silly with a foreign key!