tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post1531211408962745744..comments2024-03-10T05:26:42.148-04:00Comments on My Biased Coin: ListenMichael Mitzenmacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738274256402616703noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-53791964220572058872011-12-19T16:49:11.066-05:002011-12-19T16:49:11.066-05:00The biggest reason for this fairly common belief, ...The biggest reason for this fairly common belief, in my opinion, is that researchers have a tendency to isolate their work in academic jargon which makes it largely unreachable by practicioners.<br /><br />YMMV.John Haugelandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07701245705928548668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-91624734392202026492011-10-30T06:50:47.874-04:002011-10-30T06:50:47.874-04:00This is completely true.
It's true that a lot...This is completely true.<br /><br />It's true that a lot of theoreticians don't listen to practicians. It's also true that theoreticians don't write for practicians.<br /><br />How many theoretical papers claim to introduce new algorithms, but give listings that are clear as mud, utterly abstruse, and unexploitable by practicians?<br /><br />Every time one of us publishes a paper about something that is too complicated to be used, we continue to dig this divide between theoretical and practical computer science.<br /><br />Those of us that truly believe in bridging the gap, should take care to, as a conclusion to any work we publish, do what is required to put it in readily usable form (with the help of colleagues if you're not clear on implementation details).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-12599018835631067492011-10-13T01:49:58.760-04:002011-10-13T01:49:58.760-04:00I agree with Anon1: it's hard to generalize (a...I agree with Anon1: it's hard to generalize (and it's quite possible your colleague had a bad experience with someone who WASN'T interested in more applied-ish questions). <br /><br />I think it's the problem of minority groups of all kinds: if you meet only a few members of the group, you assume they're the average, rather than being outliers in different ways. Much in the way people assume that all Indians are engineers.. oh wait...Suresh Venkatasubramanianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15898357513326041822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-4746987932335448972011-10-12T22:50:52.868-04:002011-10-12T22:50:52.868-04:00I think you cannot generalize from one remark. The...I think you cannot generalize from one remark. There are plenty of theoreticians who like to talk to non-theory people and there are some who are simply uninterested.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-37496894983468368802011-10-12T21:35:19.749-04:002011-10-12T21:35:19.749-04:00(Man, posting replies to your blog entries is way ...(Man, posting replies to your blog entries is way more fun than finishing up this midterm exam I'm working on...)<br /><br />That hasn't been my experience at all. I've shown up at theory lunch several times to ask stupid questions, frequently knock on my theory colleagues' doors, etc. Rasmus Pagh was visiting here a while ago and very kindly let me steal him away for an hour or two to brainstorm about some hashing tricks we were working on for our SOSP'11 paper on memory-efficient indexing, ... you get the idea.<br /><br />But - bias: I probably only bother people who I suspect are tolerant and interested in reaching out to the real world. Furthermore, CMU works hard to be astoundingly interdisciplinary, and it rubs off even inside the CS department. But why wouldn't you? It's an awesome way to sometimes find previously unseen tricks to apply...David Andersenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03996590425188586871noreply@blogger.com