Theoretical vs Practical Knowledge [was: Re: Opportunity for Usability Evaluation]

Tue Dec 11 10:38:43 PST 2001

On Tue, 11 Dec 2001 13:16:32 -0500 (EST) 
Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr <gwen at reptiles.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Dec 2001, J C Lawrence wrote:

> I'm going to wander afield from where this thread started.

Beware of setting dangerous precedent!

> IMHO, it's very important to have a mix of theoretical and
> practical knowledge. This isn't a suggestion that you must have a
> degree - but it's a strong suggestion that you must have some form
> of theoretical background.

As in all such things beware of extremes, or to quote Oscar Wilde,
"Moderation in all things including moderation."  Hands on empirical
knowledge can be and often is invaluable.  Theoretical knowledge by
itself is typically worth slightly less than the paper its not
written on.  Pragmatic knowledge, if constrained to the level of,
"If I poke this button that light will come on," is nor very useful
past trivialities.

In the end you want someone who can think and who has enough data,
observed and received, to draw useful timely conclusions.  

> The major failing of a person who only has pragmatic experience is
> that they only know what they've encountered. My classic example
> for this is the wonderful SAGE-II/III that I had working for me,
> who managed to tar up and remove lib, because he was completely
> unaware of it's purpose!  (not really a surprise there - it's not
> knowledge that the average hands on sysadmin would need to know).

Hehn.  Famous last words: "libc.so is not important, is it?"

> A bit of book larning' would have nipped that problem cleanly in
> the bud.

I'm less convinced.  It might have helped.  I'd be more impressed by
a chap who had a SysAdm background and something of a developer
background (even if light) as that tends to give some of the
pragmatic viewpoints on not only how the system works, but a bit of
why.

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.