Timeline for Do you have to be good at math to be a good programmer?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| S Jan 27, 2012 at 8:10 | history | post merged (destination) | |||
| Sep 12, 2011 at 12:58 | comment | added | Dan Diplo | @Thorbjørn - If I was being contentious I'd argue that a degree in English is a useful as a degree in programming. Being able to express yourself in the English language is often just as important as being able to express yourself in a programming language. The stereotype of the unsocial programmer sitting alone in a corner communicating via grunts and terse emails, unable to talk to clients or write specifications, is one that should be consigned to the past! | |
| Sep 10, 2011 at 3:38 | comment | added | Rick | Let's not even get into the "definition" of a programmer vs a developer vs an engineer. Yikes... | |
| Sep 10, 2011 at 3:37 | comment | added | Rick | This topic always brings much debate. The real question you should ask yourself is not whether or not it'll make you a good programmer. I know many programmers that are horrible at what they do, and they took a lot of math. The real question is, "why" do I need formalized training in science/engineering to land the large majority of programming jobs out there? In my humble opinion, it is the "way" you think that makes you a good programmer, and mathematics, science, and engineering disciplines help to give you a more logical way to approach problems, conceivably making you a better programmer. | |
| Mar 9, 2011 at 11:28 | comment | added | SK-logic | @Donal Fellows, the formal logic is a math. And philosophers are anyway recognised for their historical contribution to the mathematics, as well as mathematicians who revenged (e.g., by inventing some weird stuff like 'monadology'). | |
| Mar 9, 2011 at 11:16 | comment | added | Donal Fellows | @SK-logic: More strictly, everything a computer does is logical. Some of those logic operations are interpreted as math (and some people claim logic is a branch of math, much to the indignation of some philosophers). | |
| Mar 9, 2011 at 11:13 | comment | added | Donal Fellows | @Dan: Alas, it's more difficult than that. Floating-point math is very tricky to do right because of the need to manage significance or you too easily end up with zero bits of usable information (the rest being errors!) which is why the smart approach is to use a library that does the right thing when you can. There's some good Fortran libs for stuff like simultaneous equation solving. | |
| Mar 8, 2011 at 19:17 | comment | added | user1249 | English Literature? So you write great documentation? | |
| Mar 8, 2011 at 17:21 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki | ||
| Mar 7, 2011 at 11:06 | comment | added | SK-logic | Incrementing by one is not the most common mathematical operation. Because all of the operations your programs perform are mathematical. Non-mathematical things appears only on a level of architecture, but the coding itself is a 100% pure math and nothing but math. | |
| Dec 13, 2010 at 12:27 | comment | added | mmmmmm | The learning is from a branch of maths - Numerical Analysis and rounding on equations is not simple. - OK for money use decimal or ints | |
| Sep 19, 2010 at 13:32 | comment | added | Dan Diplo | @Mark - True, but I'd say understanding rounding issues is more a question of knowing the correct type to use. You don't need to be good at maths to learn that (for instance) decimal is better than float for monetary values. And I don't think a mathematician would automatically realise the correct datatype to use - it's a question of learning. | |
| Sep 19, 2010 at 9:04 | comment | added | mmmmmm | @Dan Diplo - even with implementing formulae you need to understand them to know how to implement - the number of issues with rounding and other errors | |
| Sep 17, 2010 at 18:42 | comment | added | Dan Diplo | You have a point, Chris, but even with financial applications you are more likely to be implementing formulae than devising them. | |
| Sep 17, 2010 at 18:41 | vote | accept | killown | ||
| S Jan 27, 2012 at 8:10 | |||||
| Sep 17, 2010 at 18:01 | comment | added | user2458 | Finance and accounting aren't that bad, unless you're doing options pricing or something like that. | |
| Sep 17, 2010 at 12:25 | comment | added | Chris | Be careful about business applications if they get into finance and/or accounting though as this will require some knowledge of mathematics. | |
| Sep 17, 2010 at 9:55 | history | answered | Dan Diplo | CC BY-SA 2.5 |