Definitions containing são francisco
We've found 89 definitions:
| oakland | Oakland a city in western California on San Francisco Bay opposite San Francisco; primarily and industrial urban center — Princeton's WordNet |
| san jose | San Jose a city in western California located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay to the south of San Francisco; a center for computer and electronics industries — Princeton's WordNet |
| sao tome | Sao Tome capital of Sao Tome and Principe — Princeton's WordNet |
| Frisco | Frisco San Francisco, California. — Wiktionary |
| Bay | Bay San Francisco Bay. — Wiktionary |
| sao thome e principe monetary unit | Sao Thome e Principe monetary unit monetary unit on Sao Tome e Principe — Princeton's WordNet |
| Franquist | Franquist a supporter of Francisco Franco — Wiktionary |
| San Franciscan | San Franciscan A native of San Francisco. — Wiktionary |
| praia | Praia, Cidade de Praia, capital of Cape Verde the capital of Cape Verde on Sao Tiago Island — Princeton's WordNet |
| limeira | Limeira a city of southeastern Brazil (northwest of Sao Paulo) — Princeton's WordNet |
| dobra | dobra the basic unit of money on Sao Tome e Principe — Princeton's WordNet |
| cidade de praia | Praia, Cidade de Praia, capital of Cape Verde the capital of Cape Verde on Sao Tiago Island — Princeton's WordNet |
| osasco | Osasco a city in southeastern Brazil; suburb of Sao Paulo — Princeton's WordNet |
| sao jose dos campos | Sao Jose dos Campos a city in southeastern Brazil to the northeast of Sao Paulo — Princeton's WordNet |
| capital of cape verde | Praia, Cidade de Praia, capital of Cape Verde the capital of Cape Verde on Sao Tiago Island — Princeton's WordNet |
| Bay | Bay The San Francisco Bay Area — Wiktionary |
| principe | Principe an island in the Gulf of Guinea that is part of Sao Tome and Principe — Princeton's WordNet |
| sao bernardo do campo | Sao Bernardo do Campo a city in southeastern Brazil; an industrial suburb of Sao Paulo — Princeton's WordNet |
| San Franciscan | San Franciscan Of or relating to San Francisco. — Wiktionary |
| San Fran | San Fran The City of San Francisco, California. — Wiktionary |
| santos | Santos a port city in southwestern Brazil on an offshore island near Sao Paulo — Princeton's WordNet |
| Baghdad by the Bay | Baghdad by the Bay Nickname for San Francisco (city in California). — Wiktionary |
| nob hill | Nob Hill a fashionable neighborhood in San Francisco — Princeton's WordNet |
| san mateo | San Mateo a town in California to the south of San Francisco — Princeton's WordNet |
| 49er | 49er A player for the San Francisco 49ers, an NFL team. — Wiktionary |
| big sur | Big Sur a picturesque coastal region of California to the south of San Francisco — Princeton's WordNet |
| Muwekma | Muwekma Ohlone people, native to the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas, California. — Wiktionary |
| Costanoan | Costanoan Ohlone people, native to the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas, California. — Wiktionary |
| san pablo | San Pablo a town in western California to the north of Oakland on an arm of San Francisco Bay — Princeton's WordNet |
| tanacetum camphoratum | camphor dune tansy, Tanacetum camphoratum densely hairy plant with rayless flowers; San Francisco Bay area — Princeton's WordNet |
| camphor dune tansy | camphor dune tansy, Tanacetum camphoratum densely hairy plant with rayless flowers; San Francisco Bay area — Princeton's WordNet |
| Ohlone | Ohlone An indigenous population native to the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas, California. — Wiktionary |
| silicon valley | Silicon Valley a region in California to the south of San Francisco that is noted for its concentration of high-technology industries — Princeton's WordNet |
| monterey | Monterey a town in western California to the south of San Francisco on a peninsula at the southern end of Monterey Bay — Princeton's WordNet |
| sacramento river | Sacramento River a river in northern California rising near Mount Shasta and flowing south to the San Francisco Bay — Princeton's WordNet |
| Franquist | Franquist pertaining to, or associated with, the regime and policies of Francisco Franco in Spain (1939u201375) — Wiktionary |
| costanoan | Costanoan a member of a North American Indian people living in coastal California between Monterey and San Francisco Bay — Princeton's WordNet |
| Giant | Giant A player on the team the San Francisco Giants. — Wiktionary |
| Francoesque | Francoesque Reminiscent of Francisco Franco Bahamonde (1892u20131975), military general and dictator of Spain. — Wiktionary |
| Golden Gate Bridge | Golden Gate Bridge A 1.7 mile long suspension bridge linking Marin County, California, to San Francisco, California. — Wiktionary |
| golden gate | Golden Gate a strait in western California that connects the San Francisco Bay with the Pacific Ocean; discovered in 1579 by Sir Francis Drake — Princeton's WordNet |
| City | City A popular name (not always capitalized) for any of several other cities in metropolitan areas (such as San Francisco) — Wiktionary |
| Alcatraz | Alcatraz Alcatraz Island, an island in the San Francisco Bay, California, USA, formerly a famous prison — Wiktionary |
| barbary coast | Barbary Coast a part of a city that is notorious for gambling dens and brothels and saloons and riotous night life (especially the waterfront of San Francisco after the gold rush of 1849) — Princeton's WordNet |
| san andreas fault | San Andreas Fault a major geological fault in California; runs from San Diego to San Francisco; the source of serious earthquakes — Princeton's WordNet |
| berkeley | Berkeley a city in California on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay; site of the University of California at Berkeley — Princeton's WordNet |
| Haight | Haight A street in San Francisco infamous as drug-infested; a 1960s rallying point for drug culture, especially LSD (hallucinogenic acid). — Wiktionary |
| capital of california | Sacramento, capital of California a city in north central California 75 miles to the northeast of San Francisco on the Sacramento River; capital of California — Princeton's WordNet |
| sacramento | Sacramento, capital of California a city in north central California 75 miles to the northeast of San Francisco on the Sacramento River; capital of California — Princeton's WordNet |
| Coast Miwok | Coast Miwok A division of the Miwok people, who resided north of the San Francisco Bay. — Wiktionary |
| Bay Miwok | Bay Miwok A division of the Miwok people, who resided east of the San Francisco Bay. — Wiktionary |
| Barbary Coast | Barbary Coast A waterfront area of San Francisco at the time of the gold rush — Wiktionary |
| Jints | Jints Nickname for the New York Giants, subsequently the San Francisco Giants. — Wiktionary |
| centavo | centavo a fractional monetary unit of several countries: El Salvador and Sao Tome and Principe and Brazil and Argentina and Bolivia and Colombia and Cuba and the Dominican Republic and Ecuador and El Salvador and Guatemala and Honduras and Mexico and Nicaragua and Peru and the Philippines and Portugal — Princeton's WordNet |
| hippies | flower people, hippies, hipsters a youth subculture (mostly from the middle class) originating in San Francisco in the 1960s; advocated universal love and peace and communes and long hair and soft drugs; favored acid rock and progressive rock music — Princeton's WordNet |
| hipsters | flower people, hippies, hipsters a youth subculture (mostly from the middle class) originating in San Francisco in the 1960s; advocated universal love and peace and communes and long hair and soft drugs; favored acid rock and progressive rock music — Princeton's WordNet |
| flower people | flower people, hippies, hipsters a youth subculture (mostly from the middle class) originating in San Francisco in the 1960s; advocated universal love and peace and communes and long hair and soft drugs; favored acid rock and progressive rock music — Princeton's WordNet |
| Sea lion | Sea lion any one of several large species of seals of the family Otariidae native of the Pacific Ocean, especially the southern sea lion (Otaria jubata) of the South American coast; the northern sea lion (Eumetopias Stelleri) found from California to Japan; and the black, or California, sea lion (Zalophus Californianus), which is common on the rocks near San Francisco — Webster Dictionary |
| Muwekma | Muwekma The northern Ohlone people, as well as other Native Americans who descended from Mission Indians resident at the Santa Clara, San Jose or San Francisco Missions. — Wiktionary |
| Victorias Secret | Victorias Secret A retail marketer of women's clothing and beauty products, most recognizable as a marketer of bras and other lingerie, founded in San Francisco in 1977. — Wiktionary |
| Oakland | Oakland on the E. coast of the Bay of San Francisco, 4½ m. across from San Francisco city, is the capital of Alameda County, California, a beautiful city with tree-lined streets, surrounded by vineyards and orchards; it has a home of the adult blind of the State, manufactures of textile and iron goods, and fruit-canning industries, and is the terminus of the Southern Pacific Railroad. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Silicon Valley | Silicon Valley A nickname originally for the region of the San Francisco Bay Area in which there are a high number of industries producing silicon chips and later extended to mean the entire concentration of high-tech businesses in this area. — Wiktionary |
| Atlantic Islands | Atlantic Islands Widely scattered islands in the Atlantic Ocean as far north as the AZORES and as far south as the South Sandwich Islands, with the greatest concentration found in the CARIBBEAN REGION. They include Annobon Island, Ascension, Canary Islands, Falkland Islands, Fernando Po (also called Isla de Bioko and Bioko), Gough Island, Madeira, Sao Tome and Principe, Saint Helena, and Tristan da Cunha. — U.S. National Library of Medicine |
| Benicia | Benicia the former capital of California, 30 m. NE. of San Francisco; has a commodious harbour and a U.S. arsenal. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Calave`ras | Calave`ras an inland county of California, E. of San Francisco, rich in minerals, with copper and gold mines. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| military post office | military post office A branch of a designated US-based post office such as New York, San Francisco, Miami, or Seattle established by US Postal Service authority and operated by one of the Military Services. The term includes Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and established Coast Guard post offices Also called MPO. — Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms |
| Los Angeles | Los Angeles a city in South California, 345 m. SE. of San Francisco, and founded in 1781; is the centre of a great orange-growing district, and a health resort. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Fresno | Fresno a town in California, on the Southern Pacific Railway, 207 m. SE. of San Francisco; the surrounding district, extensively irrigated, produces abundance of fruit, and raisins and wine are largely exported. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Sacramento | Sacramento capital of California, situated at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers, 90 m. NE. of San Francisco; industries embrace flour and planing mills, foundries, potteries, &c.; has an art gallery, court-house, &c.; the tropical climate is tempered at night by cool sea breezes. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Palo Alto | Palo Alto 33 m. SE. of San Francisco; is the seat of a remarkable university founded by Senator Stanford, and opened in 1891, to provide instruction, from the Kindergarten stage to the most advanced and varied, to students and pupils boarded on the premises; of these there were 1000 in 1897. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| San José | San José a city of California, and capital of Santa Clara county, on the Guadalupe River, 50 m. SE. of San Francisco; has a couple of Catholic colleges, a Methodist university, pretty orchards, &c.; fruit-canning and the manufacture of flour and woollen goods are the chief industries. The name also of small towns in Guatemala, Lower California, and Uruguay. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Salem, 1 | Salem, 1 a city (36) and seaport of the United States, founded in 1626 on a peninsula in Massachusetts Bay, 15 m. NE. of Boston; its foreign trade has fallen away, but a good coasting trade is done in ice and coal; manufactures include cottons, jutes, shoes, &c. 2, Capital (5) of Oregon, on the Willamette River, 720 m. N. of San Francisco. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Passionists | Passionists an order of priests, called of the Holy Cross, founded in 1694 by Paul Francisco, of the Cross in Sardinia, whose mission it is to preach the Passion of Christ and bear witness to its spirit and import, and who have recently established themselves in England and America; they are noted for their austerity. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Herrera, Francisco | Herrera, Francisco a distinguished Spanish painter, founder of the Seville school, born at Seville; his finest paintings include "The Last Judgment" and a "Holy Family," both in churches at Seville; others are in the Louvre, Paris; they exhibit boldness of execution with faultless technique (1576-1656). He is known as El viejo, "the elder," to distinguish him from Francisco Herrera, his son, also a noted painter (1622-1685). — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Yosemite Valley | Yosemite Valley the most remarkable gorge in the world, in the centre of California, 140 m. E. of San Francisco, 6 m. long and from ½ to 24 m. broad, girt by perpendicular walls thousands of feet deep and traversed by the river Merced in a succession of falls of great height, the whole presenting a scene of mingled grandeur and beauty; it was discovered in 1851, and steps are being taken by Congress to preserve it as a place of public resort and recreation. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Harrison, Benjamin | Harrison, Benjamin . President of the United States and grandson of William Henry Harrison, a former President, born at North Bend, Ohio; started as a lawyer in Indianapolis, became an important functionary in the court of Indiana, and subsequently proved himself a brave and efficient commander during the Civil War; engaging actively in politics, he in 1880 became a United States Senator; as the nominee of the Protectionist and Republican party he won the Presidency against Cleveland, but at the election of 1892 the positions were reversed; in 1893 he became a professor in San Francisco; b. 1833. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Velasquez, Diego de Silva | Velasquez, Diego de Silva greatest of Spanish painters, born at Seville, of Portuguese family; studied under Francisco Herrera (q. v.), who taught him to teach himself, so that but for the hint he was a self-taught artist, and simply painted what he saw and as he saw it; portrait-painting was his forte, one of his earliest being a portrait of Olivarez, succeeded by one of Philip IV. of Spain, considered the most perfect extant, and by others of members of the royal family; specimens of his work are found in different countries, but the best are in Spain, in Madrid, and they include sacred subjects, genre, landscape, and animal paintings, as well as portraits (1599-1660). — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Portland | Portland 1, the largest city (50) and principal seaport of Maine, stands on a peninsula in Casco Bay, 108 in. NE. of Boston by rail. It has extensive wharfs, dry-docks, and grain-elevators, engineer shops, shoe-factories, and sugar-refineries. Settled as an English colony in 1632, it was ravaged by fire in 1866. Longfellow was born here. 2, largest city (90) in Oregon, on the Willamette River, nearly 800 m. N. of San Francisco; is a handsome city, with numerous churches and schools; there are iron-foundries, mechanics' shops, canneries, and flour-mills; railway communication connects it with St. Paul and Council Bluffs, and the river being navigable for deep-sea steamers, it is a thriving port of entry. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Quevedo y Villegas | Quevedo y Villegas Francisco Gomez de, a Spanish poet, born at Madrid, of an old illustrious family; left an orphan at an early age, and educated at Alcalá, the university of which he left with a great name for scholarship; served as diplomatist and administrator in Sicily under the Duke of Ossuna, the viceroy, and returned to the Court of Philip IV. in Spain at his death; struggled hard to purify the corrupt system of appointments to office in the State then prevailing but was seized and thrown into confinement, from which, after four years, he was released, broken in health; he wrote much in verse, but only for his own solace and in communication with his friends, and still more in prose on a variety of themes, he being a writer of the most versatile ability, of great range and attainment (1580-1645). — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| El Camino Bignum | El Camino Bignum The road mundanely called El Camino Real, running along San Francisco peninsula. It originally extended all the way down to Mexico City; many portions of the old road are still intact. Navigation on the San Francisco peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino Real, which defines logical north and south even though it isn't really north-south in many places. El Camino Real runs right past Stanford University and so is familiar to hackers. The Spanish word ‘real’ (which has two syllables: /ray·ahl´/) means ‘royal’; El Camino Real is ‘the royal road’. In the FORTRAN language, a real quantity is a number typically precise to seven significant digits, and a double precision quantity is a larger floating-point number, precise to perhaps fourteen significant digits (other languages have similar real types). When a hacker from MIT visited Stanford in 1976, he remarked what a long road El Camino Real was. Making a pun on ‘real’, he started calling it ‘El Camino Double Precision’ — but when the hacker was told that the road was hundreds of miles long, he renamed it ‘El Camino Bignum’, and that name has stuck. (See bignum.) [GLS has since let slip that the unnamed hacker in this story was in fact himself —ESR] In the early 1990s, the synonym El Camino Virtual was been reported as an alternate at IBM and Amdahl sites in the Valley. Mathematically literate hackers in the Valley have also been heard to refer to some major cross-street intersecting El Camino Real as “El Camino Imaginary”. One popular theory is that the intersection is located near Moffett Field — where they keep all those complex planes. — The New Hacker's Dictionary |
| boink | boink 1. [Usenet: variously ascribed to the TV series Cheers, Moonlighting, and Soap]v. To have sex with; compare bounce, sense 2. (This is mainstream slang.) In Commonwealth hackish the variant ‘bonk’ is more common. 2. n. After the original Peter Korn ‘Boinkon’ Usenet parties, used for almost any net social gathering, e.g., Miniboink, a small boink held by Nancy Gillett in 1988; Minniboink, a Boinkcon in Minnesota in 1989; Humpdayboinks, Wednesday get-togethers held in the San Francisco Bay Area. Compare @-party. 3. Var of bonk; see bonk/oif. — The New Hacker's Dictionary |
| San Francisco | San Francisco capital of California, and commercial metropolis of the W. coast of America; occupies the NE. corner of a tongue of land stretching between the Pacific and San Francisco Bay, which, with San Pablo Bay and Suisun Bay—extensions to the N.—forms a handsome land-locked sheet of water 65 m. long, communicating with the ocean by Golden Gate Strait; has practically sprung into existence since the discovery of gold in 1847, and is now a spacious and evenly laid-out city, with every modern convenience—electric light, cable tramways, &c.; many of the dwelling-houses are of wood, but marble and granite give dignity to Government buildings, hotels, theatres, &c.; there is a remarkable number of religious sects; has a fine park, many free schools, a number of colleges, and a university; as the western terminus of the great continental railroads and outlet for the produce of a rich wheat district it has a large shipping trade; important industries are shipbuilding, whale-fishing, sugar-refining, iron-works, &c. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| logical | logical [from the technical term logical device, wherein a physical device is referred to by an arbitrary ‘logical’ name] Having the role of. If a person (say, Les Earnest at SAIL) who had long held a certain post left and were replaced, the replacement would for a while be known as the logical Les Earnest. (This does not imply any judgment on the replacement.) Compare virtual. At Stanford, ‘logical’ compass directions denote a coordinate system relative to El Camino Real, in which ‘logical north’ is always toward San Francisco and ‘logical south’ is always toward San Jose--in spite of the fact that El Camino Real runs physical north/south near San Francisco, physical east/west near San Jose, and along a curve everywhere in between. (The best rule of thumb here is that, by definition, El Camino Real always runs logical north-south.) In giving directions, one might say: “To get to Rincon Tarasco restaurant, get onto El Camino Bignum going logical north.” Using the word ‘logical’ helps to prevent the recipient from worrying about that the fact that the sun is setting almost directly in front of him. The concept is reinforced by North American highways which are almost, but not quite, consistently labeled with logical rather than physical directions. A similar situation exists at MIT: Route 128 (famous for the electronics industry that grew up along it) wraps roughly 3 quarters around Boston at a radius of 10 miles, terminating near the coastline at each end. It would be most precise to describe the two directions along this highway as ‘clockwise’ and ‘counterclockwise’, but the road signs all say “north” and “south”, respectively. A hacker might describe these directions as logical north and logical south, to indicate that they are conventional directions not corresponding to the usual denotation for those words. — The New Hacker's Dictionary |
| Sherman, William Tecumseh | Sherman, William Tecumseh a distinguished American general, born, the son of a judge, in Lancaster, Ohio; first saw service as a lieutenant of artillery in the Indian frontier wars in Florida and California; resigned from the army in 1853, and set up as a banker in San Francisco, but at the outbreak of the Civil War accepted a colonelcy in the Federalist ranks; distinguished himself at the battles of Bull Run (1861) and Shiloh (1862); received promotion, and as second in command to Grant rendered valuable service in reducing Vicksburg and Memphis; was present at the victory of Chattanooga, and during 1864 entered into command of the SW.; captured the stronghold of Atlanta, and after a famous march seaward with 65,000 men took Savannah, which he followed up with a series of victories in the Carolinas, receiving, on 26th April 1865, the surrender of General Johnston, which brought the war to a close; was created general and commander-in-chief of the army in 1869, a position he held till 1869; published memoirs of his military life (1820-1891). — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Pacific Ocean | Pacific Ocean the largest sheet of water on the globe, occupies a third of its whole surface, as much as all the land put together. It is a wide oval in shape, lying between Australia and Asia on the W., and North and South America on the E. Except from Asia it receives no large rivers. On its American shores the Gulf of California is the only considerable indentation; the Okhotsk, Japanese, Yellow, and Chinese Seas, on the Asiatic coast, are rather wide bays shut in by islands than inland seas. Its innumerable islands are the chief feature of the Pacific Ocean. The continental islands include the Aleutian, Kurile, Japan, and Philippine Islands, and the archipelago between the Malay Peninsula and Australia; the Oceanic Islands include countless groups, volcanic and coral, chiefly in the southern hemisphere, between the Sandwich Islands and New Zealand. Commerce on the Pacific Ocean is only beginning, but will increase vastly with the extension of the United States westward, the colonisation of Australia, and the opening of Chinese and Japanese ports. San Francisco and Valparaiso on the E., Hong-Kong and Sydney on the W., are just now the chief centres of trade. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| California | California the most south-westerly State in the American Union; occupies the Pacific seaboard between Oregon and Mexico, and is bounded landward by Nevada and Arizona. It is the second largest State, larger by a quarter than the United Kingdom. In the N. the rainfall is excessive, and winters severe; in the S. there is little rain, and a delightful climate. Wheat is the most important product; the grape and all manner of fruits grow luxuriantly. Mineral wealth is great: it is the foremost State for gold and quicksilver; lead, silver, copper, iron, sulphur, coal, and many other minerals abound. The industries include brandy and sugar manufactures, silk-growing, shipbuilding, and fishing. All products are exported, eastward by the great Central, Union, and Southern Pacific railroads; and seaward, the chief port being San Francisco, the largest city, as Sacramento is the capital of the State. The Yosemite Valley, in the Sierra Nevada, through which falls the Merced River, is the most wonderful gorge in the world. Captured from Mexico in 1847, the discovery of gold next year raised great excitement, and brought thousands of adventurers from all over the world. Constituted a State in 1850, the original lawlessness gradually gave way to regular administration, and progress has since been steady and rapid. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| Brazil | Brazil the largest South American State, almost equal to Europe, occupies the eastern angle of the continent, and comprises the Amazon basin, the tablelands of Matto Grosso, the upper basin of the Paraguay, and the maritime highlands, with the valleys of the Paraná and San Francisco. Great stretches of the interior are uninhabitable swamp and forest lands; forests tenanted by an endless variety of brilliant-plumed birds and insects; the coasts are often humid and unhealthy, but the upper levels have a fine climate. Almost all the country is within the tropics. The population at the seaports is mostly white; inland it is negro, mulatto, and Indian. Vegetable products are indescribably rich and varied; timber of all kinds, rubber, cotton, and fruit are exported; coffee and sugar are the chief crops. The vast mineral wealth includes diamonds, gold, mercury, and copper. Most of the trade is with Britain and America. The language is Portuguese; the religion, Roman Catholic; education is very backward, and government unsettled. Discovered in 1500, and annexed by Portugal; the Portuguese king, expelled by the French in 1808, fled to his colony, which was made a kingdom 1815, and an empire in 1822. The emperor, Pedro II., was driven out in 1889, and a republic established on the federal system, which has been harassed ever since by desultory civil war. The capital is Rio Janeiro; Bahia and Pernambuco, the other seaports. — The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
| saga | saga [WPI] A cuspy but bogus raving story about N random broken people. Here is a classic example of the saga form, as told by Guy L. Steele:
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| brute force | brute force Describes a primitive programming style, one in which the programmer relies on the computer's processing power instead of using his or her own intelligence to simplify the problem, often ignoring problems of scale and applying naive methods suited to small problems directly to large ones. The term can also be used in reference to programming style: brute-force programs are written in a heavyhanded, tedious way, full of repetition and devoid of any elegance or useful abstraction (see also brute force and ignorance). The canonical example of a brute-force algorithm is associated with the ‘traveling salesman problem’ (TSP), a classical NP-hard problem: Suppose a person is in, say, Boston, and wishes to drive to N other cities. In what order should the cities be visited in order to minimize the distance travelled? The brute-force method is to simply generate all possible routes and compare the distances; while guaranteed to work and simple to implement, this algorithm is clearly very stupid in that it considers even obviously absurd routes (like going from Boston to Houston via San Francisco and New York, in that order). For very small N it works well, but it rapidly becomes absurdly inefficient when N increases (for N = 15, there are already 1,307,674,368,000 possible routes to consider, and for N = 1000 — well, see bignum). Sometimes, unfortunately, there is no better general solution than brute force. See also NP- and rubber-hose cryptanalysis. A more simple-minded example of brute-force programming is finding the smallest number in a large list by first using an existing program to sort the list in ascending order, and then picking the first number off the front. Whether brute-force programming should actually be considered stupid or not depends on the context; if the problem is not terribly big, the extra CPU time spent on a brute-force solution may cost less than the programmer time it would take to develop a more ‘intelligent’ algorithm. Additionally, a more intelligent algorithm may imply more long-term complexity cost and bug-chasing than are justified by the speed improvement. Ken Thompson, co-inventor of Unix, is reported to have uttered the epigram “When in doubt, use brute force”. He probably intended this as a ha ha only serious, but the original Unix kernel's preference for simple, robust, and portable algorithms over brittle ‘smart’ ones does seem to have been a significant factor in the success of that OS. Like so many other tradeoffs in software design, the choice between brute force and complex, finely-tuned cleverness is often a difficult one that requires both engineering savvy and delicate esthetic judgment. — The New Hacker's Dictionary |