3 ms·
You don't use much of the stuff you learn in HS math in everyday programming. You don't need to understand calculus to write most programs, for example. But t
by pg 18y ago
You don't use much of the stuff you learn in HS math in everyday programming. You don't need to understand calculus to write most programs, for example. But the underlying ideas you learn in math can make you a better programmer. E.g. the idea that the right notation can be very powerful.
- trapper 18y agoAlso, many data analysis problems are solved best using functional style. This leads you down the right thinking path, regardless of what language you learn or use.
- vizard 18y agoIts a little funny though. I learnt programming first and maths later. SO when I encountered functions in maths at school, I thought "oh I already know this stuff".
- sireat 18y agoPG and other posters are right that you don't really need the kind of math you learn at the upper levels of HS. What you need is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_mathematics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_mathematics Sadly, HS programs in most countries do a poor job of covering topics in discrete math, despite the fact that it is not really harder than say calculus. When I said "need", I meant that discrete math is more applicable to programming than the other type(continous type, meaning calculus et al) of math. You can get by with minimal knowledge in some subsets of discrete math, but some areas such as knowing simple predicate logic can be quite handy.
- thisisnotmyname 18y agoIt depends on what you're working on. I do a fair amount of machine learning and couldn't get by without quite a bit of calculus, probability, combinatorics and linear algebra.
- wheels 18y agoBeyond that, I think that some of the beauty of mathematics can be revealed in working on hard problems. Math just seemed kind of boring in high school because it wasn't really about understanding the way that things work. When you hit up against limitations and realize that to get your head around them there are some concepts that happen to be expressed in mathematical notation that will make you more capable, suddenly wading through a bunch of cryptic notation seems like less of a chore. It's kind of like the difference between learning Spanish because your high school teacher told you too verses stumbling into some of Pablo Neruda's poetry and realizing that it'd be more powerful in its native form.