>I think you are misunderstanding my point here...
>

Possibly.

>And, while I think concepts on their own are OK, they are are much better presented in the scope of practical work.

If applicable. Many times, they're not.

>With that in mind, what is is that provides value? Bleeding edge theory that nobody can apply?

Just because it'e bleeding edge doesn't mean nobody can apply it. Everything that we work with was bleeding edge at one time, and it had to be taught to everybody that didn't invent it.

>Tell me, who would you rather go listen to for a C/S session. Somebody who has actually worked with C/S backends and delivered applications, or somebody who has textbook knowledge of SQL and has heard about how SQL backends work?

Again, if the person knows enough to cover the lecture material and confidently answer relative questions correctly, I don't care. Why should I? Pointing out technical errors with somebody's presentation or articles is one thing- discrediting it soleley because you think that their knowledge is gained from books instead of work is a useless endeavor, IMO.

>Case and point, Steve Black is great at presenting patterns. Why? Because he has employed the concepts in his Intl Toolkit.

I disagree. SB is a worthy lecturer because he knows the topic. He happened to learn the topic from practical experience, but that is not the only way to learn a topic. Perhaps the best way, I agree.

Same goes for your other examples...

>The point of all this is that any of use can read and talk theory. If however, you really want to teach, or if you are concerned with learning from somebody, to be truly effective, they NEED practical experience. This stuff is too complicated. There are too many discrepencies between the theorhetical aspects of how things are supposed to work and how they actually work. Often, the capacity for somebody being able to answer your question accurately is dependent on whether they actually use the technology. So, as far as you not caring about a presenter's practical experience, I think that is a bit short-sighted on your part.

I have never in my life deployed a solution that uses ASP. I use it myself for simple utilities, testing components and the like, but I have never deployed it. I learned it from books and articles, just enough for me to get my samples, tests, and utilies working. But for my real-world apps, I use WWWC. Nonetheless, my limited practical experience, and extensive book experience has been enough to help me counsel dozens of other developers through problems they are having with ASP apps, even developing pretty extensive code samples for use in ASP.

I could keep my mouth shut when an ASP question shows up here because I may not have the 'practical' experience you say is required for a good lesson, but I think that decision would be a disservice to the person with the problem.

I extend these feelings to article authors. If somebody is a good author, and has enough knowledge on a subject to cover it thoroughly and accurately, they can only do the community a service by writing about it, whether they have deployed it in the real world or not.