How To Hunt An Elephant
- 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.
-
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.
-
ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMERS
- prefer to execute Algorithm A on
their hands and knees.
-
DATABASE ADMINISTRATORS
- do not need to go out and capture elephants
when they can retrieve them simply with an ad hoc query:
SELECT * FROM AFRICAN_CRITTERS
2 WHERE CRITTER_TYPE = 'TERRESTRIAL' 3 AND SIZE = 'LARGE' 4 AND COLOUR = 'GRAY'
5 AND TRUNK = 'YES'
6 AND ODOUR IS NOT NULL;
-
ENGINEERS
- hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching grey animals
at
random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or
minus
15 percent of any previously observed elephant.
- 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.
- POLITICIANS
- don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants
you catch with the people who voted for them.
- 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 non-pre-hunted elephant, (in
other words, a live one) the staff will:
- Compliment the vice president's keen eyesight
- Enlarge itself
to
prevent any recurrence
-
QUALITY ASSURANCE INSPECTORS
- ignore the elephants and look for
mistakes the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.
-
SALES PEOPLE
- don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling
elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the
season
opens.
-
SOFTWARE SALES PEOPLE
- ship the first thing they catch and write up
an
invoice for an elephant.
-
HARDWARE SALES PEOPLE
- catch rabbits, paint them grey, and sell them
as
desktop elephants.