Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!megatest!djones
From: djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: "Expertise"
Message-ID: <3261@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Date: 4 Apr 89 22:19:57 GMT
References: <18764@joyce.istc.sri.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Megatest Corporation, San Jose, Ca
Lines: 56

I guess I better clarify my position a bit, before the flames get
any higher.

I don't disdain theory.  Quite the opposite. I delight in theory.
My first love was pure mathematics. I studied on the "third floor"
at the University of Texas, when it was the purest of pure. Took
the last course that R.L. Moore taught.  Got admitted to the math
graduate school at the University of Texas when I was a sophomore. How
come? I was running out of graduate courses to take, so they admitted me
before I used them all up. (And I had all A's.) Okay, maybe there
was a little bragging going on there, but I think I made my point:
I've got nothing against math, and nothing against theory.

As I mentioned, I taught two years as Visiting Associate Professor
in the C.S. department of a well known midwestern university.  I taught
undergraduate and graduate courses in the Theory of Parsing and
Translation, and in the Design and Analysis of Algorithms.  Love
that stuff.

But over the years, I have come to believe that the concrete must
both precede and follow theory. This is as true in music and athletics
as it is in math and computation theory.  Charlie Parker, the great
jazz saxophone master is said to have advised, "First learn your
horn. Then learn all the theory. Then forget all that and just play."

Some people start with theory (they don't learn the horn), and they
end with theory (they never just play).  I get irritated with people
who, it appears to me at least, can't "play computer" (because they
have never practiced) but who posture around clucking about theory and
generally acting superior.  I understand full well that it is my problem
that I allow such things to bother me, if only a little bit.  But recall
that the posting which started this gave and asked for examples of
"irritating people".  I was a little irritated by the request. So I took
it at face value, and impetuously dashed off the answer.  I probably
should not have.

One more word of appology: I realized later that I may have left
the impression that there may have been of these "irritating people"
at the university which once employed me. I hope I did not give that
impression, because I really liked the people I worked with there.
Still do. I did't name the institution, only because I saw no reason to do
so in a posting which was probably going to draw some heat.  So
who were these "irritating people"?  I was thinking mostly of visiting
lecturers, people I've met at computer conferences and at parties, and
(yes) self-professed World's Foremost Authorities who post articles
on the net.


There now.  I don't know whether I made matters better or worse.


Oh. One more thing.  As usual, most of the favorable responses have
come through email. (And all the email responses were favorable.)
Stuff like, "Thanks for saying what I wanted to say."  And as usual, all
the unfavorable responses were posted back to the net.  Funny how that
works.