Collecting Seashells

Three seashell collectors spent the summer at a beach.

The first collector carried a basket that held ten shells. Every day she collected ten pretty shells and took them home and displayed them. At the end of the summer she had hundreds of pretty shells.

The second collector carried a basket that held ten shells. He spent two weeks finding ten very pretty shells and took them home and displayed them. He spent the rest of the summer fishing. At the end of the summer he had ten very pretty shells.

The third collector carried a basket that held ten shells. Every day she collected ten pretty shells and took them home. Of her existing and new shells, she kept the ten prettiest, and displayed them. At the end of the summer she had ten gorgeous shells.

Not to be a wet-wow-thrower, but how does this help us? This isn't exactly a Sufi lesson, you know.

[Well I can see the point. If you can't, do some thinking.]

Fishing is more fun than collecting shells...

So combine the two. Stick a few rods in the sand or rocks, hook bells on them, and scan the ground around for shells while you're waiting for a bite.

Let's not take the analogy too far...

The first collector might have 10 gorgeous shells scattered in the mix.

And how to get at them...???

[Refactor the pile.]

The third collector knew enough to RefactorAsYouGo and RefactorMercilessly. The first collector is about to discover that BigRefactoringsAreHard.

See GeneticAlgorithm (not exactly the same thing, but related anyway).

not exactly the same thing...

The lesson here is more in the fitness algorithm, not the picking. A GeneticAlgorithm that came up with ten new variations every day but never winnowed some out would be worthless. One that stopped after the first ten would be just about as bad.

Only an algorithm that worked like the last collector would produce something of value, always refining; always looking.

Ok, there's always blind luck too.

"I have a large seashell collection, which I keep scattered on the beaches all over the world. Maybe you've seen it." -StevenWright

Some of them are gorgeous, WhoDecides?

BenefitsAreSubjective

Don't forget -- the second collector also had a freezer full of fish by the time the summer was over.

The forth collector didn't carry a basket. She could only carry two shells -- one in each hand. She would only pick up a shell if it was better than any other she had seen so far. At the end of the season she had only a few really awesome shells.

The Xth collector left the shells where they were. "It's prettier that way." they said.

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