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This is so stupid, the "primer on the basics" should be "Algorithmization for Computer Science", not a 900+ page math textbook (that doesn't even explore graph
by trueSlav 10y ago
This is so stupid, the "primer on the basics" should be "Algorithmization for Computer Science", not a 900+ page math textbook (that doesn't even explore graph theory, calculus and differential calculus).
- Smaug123 10y agoSo if I understand correctly, this book is both too long and doesn't cover enough? (I'm confused about the book to which you're referring. If it's "Mathematics for Computer Science", then it does cover graph theory from p445.)
- sn9 10y agoCalculus is a prereq for taking the course in which this book is used. I'm pretty sure Differential Equations is also a required course for CS majors at MIT, too.
- qntty 10y agoRead the TOC again, there's plenty of graph theory. Calculus isn't important for CS.
- mindcrime 10y agoCalculus isn't important for CS. It can be, depending on what you're doing. Look at back-propagation in neural networks for example, where the whole thing is based on the chain rule from Calculus.
- qntty 10y agoYeah absolutely. Having a broad background in math can help in surprising places but there's much more math that has applications to CS than can fit in one class.
- dang 10y agoThis breaks the HN guidelines against calling names in comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Please don't do that here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13800495 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13800495 and marked it off-topic.