HUNTING ELEPHANTS
Mathematicians Hunt Elephants By Going To Africa, Throwing Out Everything
That Is Not An Elephant, And Catching One Of Whatever Is Left.
Mathematicians hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything
that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left. Experienced
mathematicians will attempt to prove the existence of at least one unique
elephant before proceeding to step 1, as a subordinate exercise. Professors
of mathematics will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant and
their graduate students.
Computer scientists hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A:
1. Go to Africa.
2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent
alternately east and west.
4. During each traverse pass
(a) Catch each animal seen.
(b) Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
(c) Stop when a match is detected.
Experienced computer programmers modify algorithm A by placing a known
elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate. Assembly
language programmers prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands and
knees.
Engineers hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching grey animals and
stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15 percent of
any previously observed elephants.
Economists don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are
paid enough, they'll hunt themselves.
Statisticians hunt the first animal they see n times and call it an elephant.
Consultants don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all,
but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do. Operations
research consultants can also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet
colour to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will
only identify the elephants.
Politicians don't hunt elephants, but will share the elephants you catch with
the people who voted for them.
Lawyers don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around arguing
about who owns the droppings. Software lawyers will claim that they own
an entire herd based on the look and feel of one dropping.
Vice-presidents of engineering, research and development try hard to hunt
elephants, but their staffs are designed to prevent it. When the
vice-president does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try to ensure that
all possible elephants are completely pre-hunted before the vice-president
sees them. If the vice-president does see a nonpre-hunted elephant, the
staff will
1) compliment the vice-president's keen eyesight, and
2) enlarge itself to prevent any recurrence.
Senior managers set broad elephant hunting policy based on the assumption
that elephants are just like big field mice, but with deeper voices.
Quality assurance inspectors ignore the elephants and look for mistakes the
other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.
Salespeople don't hunt elephants, but spend their time selling the elephants
they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens. Software
salespeople ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an
elephant. Hardware salespeople catch rabbits, paint them grey, and sell them
as desktop elephants.
