4 ms·

>Can you give some examples where you hid road blocks because of your lack of education? At a certain point I was working on an iOS app attempting to do some r

>Can you give some examples where you hid road blocks because of your lack of education? At a certain point I was working on an iOS app attempting to do some really advanced animations with Core Animation/Core Graphics and my total lack of geometry and basic algebra knowledge started to show. One of my colleagues started talking about the movement of an animation in terms of radians and pi and I felt completely lost. He was speaking a totally different language to me. Up to that point I had felt somehow "proud" of being a self taught developer with no formal schooling. But when that happened I just felt completely embarrassed at my lack of fundamental knowledge and context. Now I'm struggling through undergrad mathematics classes and hoping to get to that point some day. The greatest overall takeaway I had from that experience is that math and science open a completely different world to you that most people don't even know exists. It changed my life.

discreteevent 10y ago
Good to hear that you are learning some practical applied mathematics. It will be useful. You might find that the mathematics taught as part of a CS course is much less useful for 90% of programming jobs and not much use in the rest of your life either.
j_jochem 10y ago
To be honest though, that stuff confuses the hell out of me too and I have an MSc in CS from a highly regarded German engineering university. So while I agree with your general sentiment about depth of knowledge, basic computer graphics linear algebra stuff is just another skill that you learn in a similar way to a new language, for example.
taway_1212 10y ago
A lot of the hardcore game developers (which use way more math and advanced CS concepts that most other devs) didn't go to college. This stuff is totally learnable on your own. I recommend for example "Essential mathematics for games" by Bishop and Van Verth.
- jungletek 10y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation. As someone pursuing gamedev who also knows their math background is lacking, I'm always looking for tailored stuff like this.

discreteevent 10y ago

Good to hear that you are learning some practical applied mathematics. It will be useful. You might find that the mathematics taught as part of a CS course is much less useful for 90% of programming jobs and not much use in the rest of your life either.

j_jochem 10y ago

To be honest though, that stuff confuses the hell out of me too and I have an MSc in CS from a highly regarded German engineering university. So while I agree with your general sentiment about depth of knowledge, basic computer graphics linear algebra stuff is just another skill that you learn in a similar way to a new language, for example.

taway_1212 10y ago

A lot of the hardcore game developers (which use way more math and advanced CS concepts that most other devs) didn't go to college. This stuff is totally learnable on your own. I recommend for example "Essential mathematics for games" by Bishop and Van Verth.

jungletek 10y ago
Thanks for the recommendation. As someone pursuing gamedev who also knows their math background is lacking, I'm always looking for tailored stuff like this.