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Dude, chill out, will ya?! Go to a math department and claim that algorithms & complexity is math and you will get lynched by some topologist. Most of EE & CS i

by Rod 17y ago

Dude, chill out, will ya?! Go to a math department and claim that algorithms & complexity is math and you will get lynched by some topologist. Most of EE & CS is quantitative, but it's not exactly math, in the sense that it's not formal. Physics is quantitative, for instance, but it's not math either.

ninguem2 17y ago
You are splitting hairs. The logical reasoning underpinning theoretical CS is the same as that of Mathematics. Whether or not this has any bearing on the gender imbalance problem, I don't know, but at the level of this discussion, CS is Math.
- Rod 17y ago
  I totally agree!!! But let us NOT forget that the topic being discussed is the lack of women in programming & IT, not in CS or Math! I said there's no math in programming, which is not entirely accurate because some algorithms and stuff can be considered math. But still, let us keep in mind that HN is populated with über-hackers, the kind of people who are genuinely intelectually curious and learn stuff on their own. Thus, we discuss AI, ML and NLP here on HN often. But let us keep in mind that 90% or more of the programmers in this world are coding monkeys who don't care about elegant code and intellectual pursuits, they care about a pay check and going home before 19:00. Am I wrong?
blackguardx 17y ago
EE uses no math? Since when?
- Rod 17y ago
  Control Systems, Communications and Signal Processing is quite Math-intensive. But is Electronics and Photonics Math? I doubt it. I would say that EE is either Applied Math or Applied Physics. For instance, in coding one uses Galois theory, but that is Math. The goal of an EE is not to prove theorems but to build systems and circuits. Sometimes one needs to prove theorems, but then one is doing Math, not EE. By the way, I am a graduate student in EE. Feel free to bash me ;-)
grandalf 17y ago
hah this thread has tons of testosterone in it... I'm waiting for the word "bro"...
rglovejoy 17y ago
I guess the South Park quote was a little obscure... B^)
- Rod 17y ago
  South Park? What do you mean? I don't quote SP. I never watched it.

by Rod 17y ago

ninguem2 17y ago

You are splitting hairs. The logical reasoning underpinning theoretical CS is the same as that of Mathematics. Whether or not this has any bearing on the gender imbalance problem, I don't know, but at the level of this discussion, CS is Math.

Rod 17y ago
I totally agree!!! But let us NOT forget that the topic being discussed is the lack of women in programming & IT, not in CS or Math! I said there's no math in programming, which is not entirely accurate because some algorithms and stuff can be considered math. But still, let us keep in mind that HN is populated with über-hackers, the kind of people who are genuinely intelectually curious and learn stuff on their own. Thus, we discuss AI, ML and NLP here on HN often. But let us keep in mind that 90% or more of the programmers in this world are coding monkeys who don't care about elegant code and intellectual pursuits, they care about a pay check and going home before 19:00. Am I wrong?

blackguardx 17y ago

EE uses no math? Since when?

Rod 17y ago
Control Systems, Communications and Signal Processing is quite Math-intensive. But is Electronics and Photonics Math? I doubt it. I would say that EE is either Applied Math or Applied Physics. For instance, in coding one uses Galois theory, but that is Math. The goal of an EE is not to prove theorems but to build systems and circuits. Sometimes one needs to prove theorems, but then one is doing Math, not EE. By the way, I am a graduate student in EE. Feel free to bash me ;-)

grandalf 17y ago

hah this thread has tons of testosterone in it... I'm waiting for the word "bro"...

rglovejoy 17y ago

I guess the South Park quote was a little obscure... B^)

Rod 17y ago
South Park? What do you mean? I don't quote SP. I never watched it.