Friday Wisdom: Theory and Practice

Posted on 12/15/2017 by Andrew Reynolds

Theory is when you know something, but it doesn’t work.
Practice is when something works, but you don’t know why.
Programmers combine theory and practice: “nothing works and they don’t know why.”

More wisdom next week,
Andrew

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About Andrew Reynolds

Born in California Did the school thing studying electronics, computers, release engineering and literary criticism. I worked in the high tech world doing software release engineering and am now retired. Then I got prostate cancer. Now I am a blogger and work in my wood shop doing scroll saw work and marquetry.
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22 Responses to Friday Wisdom: Theory and Practice

  1. Amusives's avatar Margy says:
    12/22/2017 at 8:57 am

    Seems to apply to politicians too.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. mitchteemley's avatar mitchteemley says:
    12/19/2017 at 4:54 pm

    You’re too clever for your own good, Andrew. ;>)

    Liked by 1 person

  4. bg's avatar bg says:
    12/16/2017 at 11:18 am

    lol you hit the nail on the funny bone . kindest regards bg ☺😎☺

    Liked by 2 people

  5. G. J. Jolly's avatar Glynis Jolly says:
    12/16/2017 at 7:25 am

    I sent this one to my son-in-law. He’s a programmer. 😀

    Liked by 2 people

  6. dorannrule's avatar dorannrule says:
    12/16/2017 at 6:17 am

    😂 So funny and true!

    Liked by 2 people

  7. Christi's avatar C. J. Hartwell says:
    12/15/2017 at 1:52 pm

    You must have an interesting relationship with your coworkers. 😉

    Liked by 2 people

  8. PiedType's avatar PiedType says:
    12/15/2017 at 10:03 am

    My son’s an IT developer and he was wrestling with this exact problem this week. His frustration was palpable, even on the phone. Only worse; the code worked sometimes, but not always. Try to pinpoint a problem like that …

    Liked by 2 people

  9. Jacqui Murray's avatar Jacqui Murray says:
    12/15/2017 at 8:21 am

    I didn’t see that coming. Good one, Andrew.

    Liked by 2 people

  10. lovestoys's avatar Brian Biggs says:
    12/15/2017 at 8:02 am

    I thought this was hilarious! I feel this way on lots of our projects for sure. That’s why my look is always “calm” – I simply have no idea…

    On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 9:56 AM, Andrew’s View of the Week wrote:

    > Andrew Reynolds posted: “Theory is when you know something, but it doesn’t > work. Practice is when something works, but you don’t know why. Programmers > combine theory and practice: “nothing works and they don’t know why.” More > wisdom next week, Andrew” >

    Liked by 2 people

  11. chaos48's avatar Allan G. Smorra says:
    12/15/2017 at 7:35 am

    Ouch. Good observation, Andrew.
    Ω

    Liked by 2 people

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