I cannot understand this prideful resentment of theory common among self-described practitioners.
Even if existing theory is inadequate, would an operating theory not be beneficial?
Or is the mystique combined with guess&check drudgery job security?
Even if existing theory is inadequate, would an operating theory not be beneficial?
Or is the mystique combined with guess&check drudgery job security?
For instance, we do not have consensus on what a theory should accomplish - should it provide convergence bounds/capability bounds? Should it predict optimal parameter counts/shapes? Should it allow more efficient calculation of optimal weights? Does it need to do these tasks in linear time?
Even materials science in metals is still cycling through theoretical models after thousands of years of making steel and other alloys.
There is an enormous amount of theory used in the various parts of building models, there just isn't an overarching theory at the very most convenient level of abstraction.
It almost has to be this way. If there was some neat theory, people would use it and build even more complex things on top of it in an experimental way and then so on.