Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Theory and Practice

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."

I was working up a nice theory to analytically deduce the load on a particular machine. It works. I have just proved it in practice except that my customers might not see an exactly same result.Nevertheless there is an unspeakable joy in applying what you know in theory to a practical problem and see for yourself, that indeed it works.Of course then reality kicks in and some facts skews the beauty of the original design you had in mind. Its for you alone and a few chosen folks around you to perceive that platonic beauty in the idea which never manifests itself faithfully.

Well, The theory in this case is supplied by Math. For a technical problem, people were expecting a solution in the domain, not some abstract answer. Thats where I saw that some folks miss the point of Math. Mostly in the domain of my problem, Math never cares about contents.(Which is where CS comes in with its ammunition). Its all about form. As long as the relationships between these forms are maintained you can stuff any content into these and still be consistent. So when some one asks you what is x in the equation x+y = z, the answer is "Who cares?". It might be 2 (as in 2+3 = 5) or it might be "Jack"( Jack + Jill = Jack and Jill).

Once you get this abstraction, the 'power' at your disposal is tremendous. With a single swoop, you can slay the problem at hand.Thats a sweet thought to sleep on..

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder what that theory is.
If its the prime theory, then I realized I misunderstood something.
If not, then I missed something.

7~

Paddy said...

Welcome Back..After a long hiatus.

It indeed worked like you said and No! You didnt misunderstand..