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 =3D 'TERRESTRIAL'
       3 AND SIZE =3D 'LARGE'
       4 AND COLOR =3D 'GRAY'
       5 AND TRUNK =3D 'YES'
       6 AND ODOR 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.

 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 identify the elephants.

 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, the staff will (1) compliment the vice
 president's keen eyesight and (2) 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 land
 rover.

 SALES PEOPLE don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling
 elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the
 season opens.

 HARDWARE SALES PEOPLE catch rabbits, paint them grey, and sell them
 as desktop elephants.