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I wish more people would scream this from the rooftops. There's that whole movement trying to get more people into programming like code.org and they all say "I

I wish more people would scream this from the rooftops. There's that whole movement trying to get more people into programming like code.org and they all say "If you're good at math you'll love this". I feel like that's scaring away lots of people who would otherwise do just fine. Examples, there's almost no math running Hacker News. There's no math in programming most blogs. There's no math in most apps. There's no math in most text editors. etc etc etc. Most programs don't need anything more than arithmetic. I'm not saying math won't help with lots of problems. Like you said you found it limiting at some point. But you managed 16 years as a programmer without much math. I'm in a similar boat. I've shipped 17 commercial games, written 6 game engines, world on Chrome for 5 years. My math sucks. Would I be better if my math was better? Of course! But that I've been productive without much math knowledge shows, at least one data point, that you don't have to be good a math to program

hugofirth 12y ago
I would have thought game engines would require a strong grounding in maths across a lot of their "moving parts"? Not being dismissive, just curious how you found working in that environment without strong maths skills.
- greggman 12y ago
  Modern 3D game engines need math in the renderer, physics, maybe the AI but the majority of a game engine doesn't. Loading files, reading inputs, displaying UIs, the object system, scripting languages, most tools, font rendering, localization systems, game save system, networking system. Nowadays teams either buy middleware for the parts that need math or else they have specialists on the team for those things. On top of that lots of game engines aren't 3D. 2D Mario? No serious math in there, at least not the SNES/NES ones. The 2D Zeldas? Even less. 2D Metroid? Probably less than Mario. Those games didn't use real maths for physics which is about the only place they could possibly use anything more than basic arithmetic.
numo16 12y ago
> I feel like that's scaring away lots of people who would otherwise do just fine. I am much in agreement with this. I know that the guidance counselor on staff when I was in high school would heavily steer people away from going into computer science/programming if they hadn't completed the entire catalog of math classes available at our school. Her assumption was that you needed to be some sort of math wizard in order to be successful in a CS or programming degree.

hugofirth 12y ago

I would have thought game engines would require a strong grounding in maths across a lot of their "moving parts"? Not being dismissive, just curious how you found working in that environment without strong maths skills.

greggman 12y ago
Modern 3D game engines need math in the renderer, physics, maybe the AI but the majority of a game engine doesn't. Loading files, reading inputs, displaying UIs, the object system, scripting languages, most tools, font rendering, localization systems, game save system, networking system. Nowadays teams either buy middleware for the parts that need math or else they have specialists on the team for those things. On top of that lots of game engines aren't 3D. 2D Mario? No serious math in there, at least not the SNES/NES ones. The 2D Zeldas? Even less. 2D Metroid? Probably less than Mario. Those games didn't use real maths for physics which is about the only place they could possibly use anything more than basic arithmetic.

numo16 12y ago

> I feel like that's scaring away lots of people who would otherwise do just fine. I am much in agreement with this. I know that the guidance counselor on staff when I was in high school would heavily steer people away from going into computer science/programming if they hadn't completed the entire catalog of math classes available at our school. Her assumption was that you needed to be some sort of math wizard in order to be successful in a CS or programming degree.