Re: theory and practice: ying and yang

I apologize if I'm addressing points covered elsewhere - I'm a little late to this thread.

mountain man wrote:
> Therefore, technically IMO, a "correct" implementation
> can always be incremented, little by little, to be an even
> more correct implementation, in a variety of ways.

I don't understand the above at all. Isn't theory the measure of "correctness"? And what does "even more correct" mean - less flawed?

> Experience and theory guide such evolution and
> eventual development. So while theory may not
> be important in order to obtain a "correct result",
> it is certainly important in trying to leverage this
> result into the state of excellence.

Theory is critical for evaluating correctness, but I don't know what is meant by "leverage this result into the state of excellence."

>
> > If the results are correct, does this not
> > imply that the theory is understood?
> ...[trim]...
>
> Not necessarily --- see above, for example.

???  

• Eric