JargonFile/entries/one-banana problem.txt

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one-banana problem
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n. At mainframe shops, where the computers have operators for routine
administrivia, the programmers and hardware people tend to look down on the
operators and claim that a trained monkey could do their job. It is
frequently observed that the incentives that would be offered said monkeys
can be used as a scale to describe the difficulty of a task. A one-banana
problem is simple; hence, It's only a one-banana job at the most; what's
taking them so long? At IBM, folklore divides the world into one-, two-, and
three-banana problems. Other cultures have different hierarchies and may
divide them more finely; at ICL, for example, five grapes (a bunch) equals a
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banana. Their upper limit for the in-house sysapes is said to be two
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bananas and three grapes (another source claims it's three bananas and one
grape, but observes However, this is subject to local variations, cosmic
rays and ISO ). At a complication level any higher than that, one asks the
manufacturers to send someone around to check things. See also
Infinite-Monkey Theorem.