How to hunt an elephant!

COMPUTER SCIENTISTS
hunt elephants by excercising 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 found.


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.



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 1st 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.



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 V.P. does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try to ensure that all possible elephants are completely prehunted before the V.P. sees them. If the V.P. does see a nonprehunted elephant, the staff will
(1) compliment the V.P.'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.



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



SOFTWARE SALESPEOPLE
ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an elephant.



HARDWARE SALESPEOPLE
catch rabbits, paint them gray, and sell them as Desktop Elephants.



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