2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
|
|
|
one-banana problem
|
|
|
|
|
2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
|
|
|
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
|
2014-07-26 03:53:53 -04:00
|
|
|
banana. Their upper limit for the in-house sysapes is said to be two
|
2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
|
|
|
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.
|