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You can't possibly know whether it has impacted you as a developer, because you don't know what "you with more math" would be like as a developer. You can say t
by nbouscal 13y ago
You can't possibly know whether it has impacted you as a developer, because you don't know what "you with more math" would be like as a developer. You can say that you're doing fine in spite of no math background, but I don't think you can reasonably claim anything about where you would be if things were otherwise.
For myself, I have experience programming with no math at all, with high school math, and with self-taught axiomatic math (I've been programming since I was quite young). I can say with certainty that every time I've learned more math, I've been able to improve as a programmer as a direct result. This even applies to relatively esoteric parts of mathematics, like category theory.
I don't think anyone's claiming that you can't work as a software developer without a heavy math background. We're just saying that you can go a hell of a lot further if you take the time to learn the math.
- untog 13y agoI never said that I am the best developer that I can ever be without it. After all, the title is "Math is Not Necessary for Software Development", not "Math will increase your skills at Software Development". If I had better math skills I don't doubt that it would benefit me. As it is, I've got some design skills and some product knowledge, so my broader skills just skew a little differently.
- nbouscal 13y agoYour claim was: "it hasn't really impacted me as a developer." That's the claim I responded to. Also, if you read the actual article, you will see that the majority of the content is regarding whether or not math is useful for software development, not just whether or not it is necessary.