HUNTING AN ELEPHANT IN THE 90s

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 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:

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.

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 COLOR = 'GRAY'

5 AND TRUNK = 'YES'

6 AND ODOR IS NOT NULL;

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.

SYSTEMS INTEGRATION ENGINEERS are not so concerned with hunting elephants

as with creating a seamless interface between the elephants and their

environment.

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, 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 non-pre-hunted elephant, (in other

words, a live one) 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.

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 gray, and sell them as

desktop elephants.