Isn't this just the old engineer/technician dichotomy but applied to programming?
I mean sure you can design circuits without learning all the differential equations governing how each component behaves, and you can fire up a copy of SolidWorks and build a lot of really nifty stuff without ever studying resistance of materials. But if you want to be an engineer in one of those fields you're definitely going to have to knuckle down and learn the respective theory at some point, even if you find yourself using very little of it on the job.
I've seen people with a more practical "technician" training brag that the engineers are "mired in theory and can't do anything useful", and then I see people with a more theoretical background think anything practical is trivial and beneath them.
I mean sure you can design circuits without learning all the differential equations governing how each component behaves, and you can fire up a copy of SolidWorks and build a lot of really nifty stuff without ever studying resistance of materials. But if you want to be an engineer in one of those fields you're definitely going to have to knuckle down and learn the respective theory at some point, even if you find yourself using very little of it on the job.
I've seen people with a more practical "technician" training brag that the engineers are "mired in theory and can't do anything useful", and then I see people with a more theoretical background think anything practical is trivial and beneath them.
Wanna know what I think? Learn both!