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 then leave the detection and capture of an actual
elephant as an exercise for their graduate students.
COMPUTER SCIENTISTS
hunt elephants by exercising
Algorithm A:
Go to Africa.
Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the
continent alternately east and west.
During each traverse pass,
Catch each animal seen.
Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
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. "C" language programmers prefer to execute
Algorithm A on their hands and knees.
ENGINEERS
hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray
animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs
within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed
elephant.
ECONOMISTS
don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if
elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves.
STATISTICIANS
hunt the 1st animal they see N times & 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 color to the
efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else
will only identify the elephants.
POLITICIANS
don't hunt elephants, but they 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 prehunted before the vice president
sees them.
If the vice president does see a nonprehunted 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 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
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 gray, and sell them as
DESKTOP ELEPHANTS.
TECHNICAL WRITERS
don't hunt elephants but prepare
documentation that explains how to identify & hunt elephants
they've never seen. Though they try hard to accompany
elephant hunters, they will settle for a photo, illustration,
rough sketch, or verbal description of an elephant to help
them complete & deliver guides & references in time for
simultaneous world-wide GA. Economic changes now require that
they also design & develop elephant-hunting brochures,
posters, packaging, posters, & other marketing publications &
trinkets. In addition, state-of-the-art technology has
allowed them to introduce the ONLINE ELEPHANT.