16 lines
2.6 KiB
HTML
16 lines
2.6 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>wall follower</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../W.html" title="W"/><link rel="previous" href="wall.html" title="wall"/><link rel="next" href="wall-time.html" title="wall time"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">wall follower</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="wall.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">W</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="wall-time.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="wall-follower"/><dt xmlns="" id="wall-follower"><b>wall follower</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> 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
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winning robot in an early AI contest (named, of course, after the
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cocktail). Harvey successfully solved mazes by keeping a
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‘finger’ on one wall and running till it came out the other
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end. This was inelegant, but it was mathematically guaranteed to work on
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simply-connected mazes — and, in fact, Harvey outperformed more
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sophisticated robots that tried to ‘learn’ each maze by
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building an internal representation of it. Used of humans, the term
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<span class="emphasis"><em>is</em></span> pejorative and implies an uncreative, bureaucratic,
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by-the-book mentality. See also <a href="../C/code-grinder.html"><i class="glossterm">code grinder</i></a>;
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compare <a href="../D/droid.html"><i class="glossterm">droid</i></a>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="wall.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../W.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="wall-time.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">wall </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> wall time</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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