That reminds me of the foibles of some of the Greek philosophers and thinking that checking if the theory has anything to do with reality would pollute the purity of thought and thus concluding that projectiles must have triangular paths where they drop at the end once they run out of impetus and women must have fewer teeth then men because they have smaller heads and all teeth are clearly the same size. Their 'wisdom' was clearly the height of foolishness despite lifetimes of thinking because they insisted upon their alienation as an inherit good.

Keeping in contact with industry is important even for those who work with the theoretical as a source of inspiration and applications. Even if the computer science itself should be technically divorced from language watching it in action and understanding it helps realize what is important so they don't spend all of their effort on minimizing memory footprint at the cost of other constraints. Following what they are doing informs both the industry and the professor.

Theory without reference to reality can easily lead to a solipsistic spiral that leads nowhere to put it politely. While it is good to explore the theoretical foundations breakthroughs come from noticing what exists in reality and understanding it. An immortal's eternity with classical physic in an infinite white walled room with infinite ink would not come up with quantum physics much less subatomic particles. Alienation from industry should be something to be ashamed of not to be proud of.