4 ms·
My guess is most of them, like Grace Hopper and Margaret Hamilton in the US, had math or physics backgrounds. Even assembly is comparatively easier than, say, f
by ioblomov 3y ago
My guess is most of them, like Grace Hopper and Margaret Hamilton in the US, had math or physics backgrounds. Even assembly is comparatively easier than, say, formal logic or partial differential equations.
- jojobas 3y agoJust having learned maths or physics doesn't magically make you able to code, let alone blindfold-code.
- basilgohar 3y agoCode is math. Variables, functions, and expressions are all mathematical terms. The main difference is the time between feedback on your code. Back then, you'd only know if there was an error in your code when it failed to run. Now we get it almost instantaneously. But that's not how it always was.
- jojobas 3y agoWhere I've studied abstract algebra, TFCV, partial diff. equations and quantum mechanics were mandatory courses, normally passed by everyone. Not all of them were cut to follow code paths, recursion etc (although a large fraction thrived with coding and are now in the industry, much larger than that of the general population). I don't think you could grab a random 60's mathematics BSc's and have them punch in business-ready code, male or female.
- pests 3y agoOne more example the early spaceflight guidance computers were completely designed / engineered on paper in graph form, with mathematicians and engineers doing all the hard math work. Assembly programmers would then turn the graphs into assembly using the best technique at the time, at moments having to use NOPs to cool down the ram. For these people the source of truth was the graphs and the actual assembly was throwaway.
- jph00 3y ago> assembly is comparatively easier than, say, formal logic or partial differential equations Can you explain how, exactly, one compares the ease of assembly to the ease of formal logic, such that one can then make a definitive and sweeping statement about that comparison?
- jl6 3y agoIt is perhaps an opinion more than a fact, but an opinion that is likely widely shared by people who have done both. Computer assembly languages are not conceptually complex in the same way that higher level math is. The difficulty of assembly comes from its relative obscurity, the proliferation of instructions and architecture variants, and the process of analyzing a problem into the required steps. These are things that can be overcome with patience and reference manuals. At its heart, assembly instructions are doing simple things. At the risk of an analogy, I would describe assembly programming as memory-intensive, and math as compute-intensive.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoHaving done both, I have to agree with OP that assembly language is far easier than PDEs.