[jonathanyc]

Someone being a professor doesn't correspond with them necessarily being a good engineer or expert on an engineering subject. Indeed, as people have limited time to spend on things they are interested in, satisfying the criterion for becoming a professor seems to often mean that you would not satisfy the criterion for being a good engineer -- time that you could have spent getting your hands dirty or gaining experience was spent doing other things, like writing papers on very specific subjects.

This is just my observation after dealing with people in academia and industry, however, so my words should be taken with a huge amount of salt. I think it's unfortunate that it's in PL where this divide tends to be most harmful.