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How to Hunt Elephants
Mathematicians hunt elephants by going to Africa,
throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and
catching one of whatever is left. Professors of
mathematics prove the existence of at least one elephant
and leave the capture of an actual elephant as an exercise
for one of their graduate students.
Computer
scientists hunt elephants using 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
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.
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 first animal they see N times
and call it an elephant.
Consultants don't hunt
elephants, but they can be hired by the hour to advise
those who do.
Operations research consultants can
measure the correlation of hat size and bullet color to
the efficiency of elephant hunting strategies, if someone
else will 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.
When the Vice President of
R&D tries to hunt elephants, his staff will try to
ensure that all elephants are completely prehunted before
he sees them. If the VP sees 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."
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