wall follower

robotics 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)