one-banana problem

At mainframe shops, where the computers have operators for

routine administrivia, the programmers and hardware people

tend to look down on the operators and claim that a trained

monkey could do their job. It is frequently observed that the

incentives that would be offered said monkeys can be used as a

scale to describe the difficulty of a task. A one-banana

problem is simple; hence, "It's only a one-banana job at the

most; what's taking them so long?"

At IBM, folklore divides the world into one-, two-, and

three-banana problems. Other cultures have different

hierarchies and may divide them more finely; at ICL, for

example, five grapes (a bunch) equals a banana. Their upper

limit for the in-house sysapes is said to be two bananas and

three grapes (another source claims it's three bananas and one

grape, but observes "However, this is subject to local

variations, cosmic rays and ISO"). At a complication level

any higher than that, one asks the manufacturers to send

someone around to check things.

See also Infinite-Monkey Theorem.

[Jargon File]