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Comment by ted_dunning

1 day ago

Anybody who does anything in the real world with Fourier transforms uses the fast Fourier transform operating on windowed data. This eliminates all of that infinite support and infinite resolution of frequencies.

To be more precise, when working with sampled data with uniform sample rate you use the Discrete Time Fourier Transform (DTFT), not the Fourier Transform!. None the less, you still end up with an approximate spectrum which is the signal spectrum convolved with the window function's spectrum.

In my view the Fourier Transform is still useful in the real world. For example you can use it to analytically derive the spectrum of a given window.

But I think the parent is hinting at wavelet basis.