2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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wall follower
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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n. A person or algorithm that compensates for lack of sophistication or
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native stupidity by efficiently following some simple procedure shown to
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have been effective in the past. Used of an algorithm, this is not
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necessarily pejorative; it recalls Harvey Wallbanger , the winning robot in
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an early AI contest (named, of course, after the cocktail). Harvey
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successfully solved mazes by keeping a finger on one wall and running till
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it came out the other end. This was inelegant, but it was mathematically
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guaranteed to work on simply-connected mazes and, in fact, Harvey
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outperformed more sophisticated robots that tried to learn each maze by
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building an internal representation of it. Used of humans, the term is
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pejorative and implies an uncreative, bureaucratic, by-the-book mentality.
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See also code grinder ; compare droid.
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