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Hunting Elephants

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.

HARDWARE 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, 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 happen to see a 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.

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.