More Than One Way to Do It - Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things - page 41

“Why, of course you can! Worrying about the problem is a waste of time! What you really
want is an answer, right?”
“Maybe, but I don't understand how,” Laurie said.
“How do you buy the best tomato?” he said.
“Well, I . . . what?”
“Let's say you're at the market. You want the best, most perfect tomato. But to find the best
tomato, you'd have to compare them all, right? You'd look at each and every one, turn it
around, maybe squeeze it a bit. For every tomato in the whole market.”
“No one does that!” said Laurie. “Well, old Mrs. Harris does do that. But my mom says she's
a little batty. I just pick a good one.”
“See? You already know how to do things the Hugh Rustic way. You don't waste your time
looking for the best tomato when there are plenty that are Good Enough.”
“So instead of trying to find the shortest path through all of the towns in Userland,” Laurie
said, “we look for one that's short enough ?”
“Why not?” asked Rustic. “Out of all the zippity-million paths, I bet there are a whole lot
that are pretty short. You need to find only one of them, and that's much easier.”
Rustic pulled out a large map and placed it on the counter.
“Here is where we are,” he said, pointing to Permute, “and this is where you started, am I
right? Let's put some pencils here to stand in for Mount Upper Bound, and a little spoon
there for Lower Bound Valley.” The map also had markers for Bach and Recursion Junction,
as well as many other places Laurie hadn't been to yet.
“Now for the fun part,” said Rustic. “Let's ask the ants.”
“Ask the ants ? What are you talking about? Ants can't read maps!” Laurie said. At the men-
tion of insects, Xor was suddenly alert.
“Who says they can't? Next you'll try to tell me that turtles can't draw circles,” Rustic said.
“So you teach the ants to read maps?”
“Not exactly. Ants are good at finding their way home already. The idea is to get them to
work for us.” He opened a jar of honey and put a tiny daub of the sweet stuff on each town.
A minute passed. Nothing happened. Then a little ant crawled onto the table. It smelled the
honey and zig-zagged its way onto the map. It nibbled from one bit of honey, then wandered
around until it walked into another one.