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I'm pretty good at math (broke 50 on the Putnam) and I don't find programming to be boring. On the other hand, knowing that I've had problems with jobsite bored

I'm pretty good at math (broke 50 on the Putnam) and I don't find programming to be boring. On the other hand, knowing that I've had problems with jobsite boredom in my past, I'm pretty sure that I'd hate the majority of programming jobs out there. Lisp and Haskell, which make programming beautiful in the mathematical sense, make a lot more sense to me than Java, and tasks like chasing down dependencies and hacking makefiles I find painful. The type of programming and the language matter a lot. Most PhDs despise programing because of the problems they encounter in the professional sphere: most numeric programming focuses on details (numeric behavior of algorithms, efficiency in speed and memory use) that most researchers would find boring. A cutting-edge algebraist doesn't want to spend his time cutting clock cycles off of a vanilla matrix multiplication, nor does an academic analyst ("analysis" being a specific field of math, as in real/complex analysis) want to spend his time fretting over the (often jarring and unpredictable) discrepancies between floats and real numbers. There are people who love those kinds of problems, but they're rarely research mathematicians.

whacked_new 18y ago
Good insight, thanks. I find cutting clock cycles quite gratifying. Admittedly there is less math in that than having a bottom-up understanding of what's going on. But you could also reframe it like any other optimization problem, given some number of inputs of a certain type. You can also prove your solution correct. It is a math problem all over. Is it safe to say that those that despise programming, also despise certain branches of math? I should add a little story. I once asked one of my friends who is very gifted in math why he prefers CS instead of pure math. His answer was something like: CS is the only field where mathematical truths can be immediately applied to reality (within the machine). It's a good balance between limitless mental masturbation and unpredictability of nature.
- banned_man 18y ago
  Is it safe to say that those that despise programming, also despise certain branches of math? Yes. At the graduate level, the various branches of math are quite different, especially between pure vs. applied. A logician would probably not enjoy a course that involved a lot of PDEs, for example.
  - TriinT 18y ago
    That's quite probable. Honestly, I can't understand why purists tend to dislike PDEs. I mean... Terry Tao does PDEs and he's a Fields medalist! Is it because PDEs are usually associated with Physics, and hence, are not "pure enough"?

whacked_new 18y ago

Good insight, thanks. I find cutting clock cycles quite gratifying. Admittedly there is less math in that than having a bottom-up understanding of what's going on. But you could also reframe it like any other optimization problem, given some number of inputs of a certain type. You can also prove your solution correct. It is a math problem all over. Is it safe to say that those that despise programming, also despise certain branches of math? I should add a little story. I once asked one of my friends who is very gifted in math why he prefers CS instead of pure math. His answer was something like: CS is the only field where mathematical truths can be immediately applied to reality (within the machine). It's a good balance between limitless mental masturbation and unpredictability of nature.

banned_man 18y ago
Is it safe to say that those that despise programming, also despise certain branches of math? Yes. At the graduate level, the various branches of math are quite different, especially between pure vs. applied. A logician would probably not enjoy a course that involved a lot of PDEs, for example.
- TriinT 18y ago
  That's quite probable. Honestly, I can't understand why purists tend to dislike PDEs. I mean... Terry Tao does PDEs and he's a Fields medalist! Is it because PDEs are usually associated with Physics, and hence, are not "pure enough"?