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Elephant Hunting
In order to hunt elephants:
A PROGRAMMER
1. Begins at the tip of South Africa;
2. Performs alternating west to east and east to west searches;
3. Decrements the latitude argument in a non integer sequence between each search;
4. Finds an animal;
5. Compares found animal to a known elephant;
6. If found animal matches known elephant terminates search
else resumes at 3;
7. end;
AN ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMER
Will perform the same search on hands and knees.
AN EXPERIENCED PROGRAMMER
Places an elephant in Cairo, Egypt to ensure
that the search will terminate properly before
initiating the above.
AN REALLY EXPERIENCED PROGRAMMER
Either :
1. Places the elephant JUST OFF-SHORE from Cairo, Egypt; or
2. Ensures that the elephant placed in Cairo is sky-blue and
scarlet
with purple spots, green stripes and yellow polka-dots, in order to
distinguish it from any elephant which may have been hiding there
already.
AN ENGINEER
After determining that an elephant is mammal, gray and weighs
3.628739*(10^3) Kg, will begin the search collecting all gray
mammals. When the sum of the weight of all the collected gray
mammals equals the specified weight of an elephant, +/- 10% ,
the search will be terminated.
CONSULTANTS
Don't actually hunt elephants and indeed may never have
hunted elephants, but they can be hired at great expense
by the hour, plus expenses, of course, to advise those who do.
This will include the time it takes to find out what an elephant
is.
AN ACOUNTANT
1. Formulate a monthly budget, design a Elephant Journal Entry
format, a Batch Logging book, add appropriate accounts (both P&L
and B/S), and a list of approved authorisors for Journals.
2. Enter accruals for the estimated numbers to be caught per month.
3. As elephants are caught, Journal them into the appropriate
period
and reverse out the accruals.
4. Keep the droppings in a filing cabinet for audit purposes.
A MATHEMATICIAN
Will first develop a hypothesis supporting the existence
of a unique elephant before proceeding with the search
as a subordinate operation, collecting all animals found,
testing them against the hypothesis and discarding all that don't
fit.
A PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS
Will first develop a hypothesis supporting the
existence of a unique elephant before sending his/her
students on the search, requiring that they collect all
animals found, test them against the hypothesis, and bring
all matching animals to him for publication.
STATISTICIANS
Hunt the first animal they encounter `n' times and call it
an elephant.
TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMISTS
Don't hunt elephants. They believe that if you give the elephants
a small tax incentive, they will hunt themselves.
POLITICIANS
Don't hunt elephants but will share any elephants YOU catch
with the people who voted for them.
LAWYERS
Don't hunt elephants, but they do follow herds around arguing
about who owns the droppings.
SOFTWARE LAWYERS
Will claim that they know who owns the entire herd based
on the look and feel of one pile of droppings.
MBAs
Only hunt elephants they can see from where they're standing.
SENIOR MANAGEMENT
Sets broad elephant hunting policies based on the
assumption that elephants are just like big field
mice, but with deeper voices.
CEO's
May try to hunt elephants but their staffs are designed to prevent
it. When the CEO does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try
to ensure that all possible elephants are completely pre-hunted
before the CEO sees them. If the CEO does see a non-pre-hunted
elephant, the staff will:
1) Compliment the CEO's keen eyesight, and
2) Enlarge itself to prevent any recurrence.
QUALITY ASSURANCE STAFF
Ignore the elephants and spend their time looking
for mistakes the hunters made while packing the jeep.
SALES STAFF
Don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants
the hunters haven't caught yet, and promising delivery
two days before the opening of elephant hunting season.
SOFTWARE SALES STAFF
Ship the first thing they catch, write up an
invoice for an elephant, modify the documentation to
match and promise a real elephant at the next update.
HARDWARE SALES STAFF
Catch rabbits, paint them grey and sell them as lap
top elephants.
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