| slovo | definícia |
wall follower
(foldoc) | wall follower
A person or algorithm that compensates for lack
of sophistication or native stupidity by efficiently following
some simple procedure shown to have been effective in the
past. Used of an algorithm, this is not necessarily
pejorative; it recalls "Harvey Wallbanger", the winning robot
in an early AI contest (named, of course, after the cocktail).
Harvey successfully solved mazes by keeping a "finger" on one
wall and running till it came out the other end. This was
inelegant, but it was mathematically guaranteed to work on
simply-connected mazes - and, in fact, Harvey outperformed
more sophisticated robots that tried to "learn" each maze by
building an internal representation of it. Used of humans,
the term *is* pejorative and implies an uncreative,
bureaucratic, by-the-book mentality.
See also code grinder.
[Jargon File]
(2003-02-03)
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wall follower
(jargon) | wall follower
n.
A person or algorithm that compensates for lack of sophistication or native
stupidity by efficiently following some simple procedure shown to have been
effective in the past. Used of an algorithm, this is not necessarily
pejorative; it recalls ‘Harvey Wallbanger’, the winning robot in an early
AI contest (named, of course, after the cocktail). Harvey successfully
solved mazes by keeping a ‘finger’ on one wall and running till it came out
the other end. This was inelegant, but it was mathematically guaranteed to
work on simply-connected mazes — and, in fact, Harvey outperformed more
sophisticated robots that tried to ‘learn’ each maze by building an
internal representation of it. Used of humans, the term is pejorative and
implies an uncreative, bureaucratic, by-the-book mentality. See also {code
grinder}; compare droid.
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