Can a student that can't even handle freshman calculus possibly be a good programmer?
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I sure hope so. I'm generally not good at math. I had pre-calculus (trigonometry) in college, learned nothing, I have no idea what good it would have done me in the thirty years I've been programming professionally. Nor have I used finite math or discrete math* even though they were required subjects. As I say, I'm not an engineer, I'm a software developer. I write internal business applications and utilities. Other people in the enterprise know calculus and can use it to ensure that a missile hits its target. Developers can specialize, and use different skills, not every developer needs to have the same skill set. * Correction, I think finite state machines were covered in discrete math. Those are useful, but I don't consider them to be math.
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I sure hope so. I'm generally not good at math. I had pre-calculus (trigonometry) in college, learned nothing, I have no idea what good it would have done me in the thirty years I've been programming professionally. Nor have I used finite math or discrete math* even though they were required subjects. As I say, I'm not an engineer, I'm a software developer. I write internal business applications and utilities. Other people in the enterprise know calculus and can use it to ensure that a missile hits its target. Developers can specialize, and use different skills, not every developer needs to have the same skill set. * Correction, I think finite state machines were covered in discrete math. Those are useful, but I don't consider them to be math.
Yes, and the reverse is also true. Can a student that can't be a good programmer handle calculus? Yes. I was a mathematics major before I became a programmer. It was not that much an advantage. However, a course in traditional logic was a plus. Flow charts, etc.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
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For certain types of programming, calculus is unnecessary. For scientific programming, engineering, and some types of business programming, it is essential. A well-rounded developer should know calculus, but one may still make a living writing software without it. I have found that many developers (especially on the UI side) don't know the "tools of the trade". They are then surprised or disappointed when the only positions they get are low-level, or that they are fired when they can no longer put in 60- to 80-hour weeks.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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Yes, and the reverse is also true. Can a student that can't be a good programmer handle calculus? Yes. I was a mathematics major before I became a programmer. It was not that much an advantage. However, a course in traditional logic was a plus. Flow charts, etc.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
Where I work there was some legacy code written by a developer who was a mathematician, nobody understood the code he had written and most had to be rewritten :-\
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When I did my 4-year CS degree, we had to take Advanced Calculus and Linear Algebra in 2nd year. I found both very challenging, partly because the profs were awful, and never used either again. Largely a waste of time given the type of software I ended up doing for most of my career. What I found far more useful was a 3rd year course in Combinatorics and Graph Theory, perhaps my favorite, though close runners-up were Operating Systems and the Electronic Music course in the Faculty of Music, taught by one of the Composition profs. He was a Schenkerian and opened my eyes to how some of the traditional Harmony that I'd studied was either needlessly complicated, misleading, or outright wrong. :laugh:
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The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. -
Either I'm a terrible programmer, or yes.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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"Alcohol and Calculus Don't Mix. Don't Drink and Derive."
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When I was a CS major in the late 80s there was a ton of math including calc I and II. I barely made it through calc I...in fact I took it twice to improve my GPA. Soon after, I dropped out and spent 10 years doing shift work in a box plant. From what I remember, the concept of arrays, especially multi-dimensional arrays, was what culled the herd more than anything else.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"
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Hmm. I received my B.S. in computer engineering in 1984. I earned 205 credit hours, 28 of which were math: Calculus I-IV, differential equations, and matrix algebra. While I've not used a great deal of the math I learned, the experience did help teach a valuable skill: representing real-world problems in abstract form so that they may be addressed in software and/or hardware. It also taught the idea that problems can have multiple solutions and the choice of method can have a profound effect on the outcome.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Lol - I left school at 15, did not even finish high school, I have no idea what calculus would do or be used for and yet I had a highly successful career writing business solutions. You could not take that path today but in the 80s/90s it was possible.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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Hmm. I received my B.S. in computer engineering in 1984. I earned 205 credit hours, 28 of which were math: Calculus I-IV, differential equations, and matrix algebra. While I've not used a great deal of the math I learned, the experience did help teach a valuable skill: representing real-world problems in abstract form so that they may be addressed in software and/or hardware. It also taught the idea that problems can have multiple solutions and the choice of method can have a profound effect on the outcome.
Software Zen:
delete this;I never studied hardcore maths, and I'm nowhere near an expert in it. But, I totally agree man. I think every programmer should at least learn the basics. If you can't least read an equation and translate it into code, then do better.
Jeremy Falcon
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For certain types of programming, calculus is unnecessary. For scientific programming, engineering, and some types of business programming, it is essential. A well-rounded developer should know calculus, but one may still make a living writing software without it. I have found that many developers (especially on the UI side) don't know the "tools of the trade". They are then surprised or disappointed when the only positions they get are low-level, or that they are fired when they can no longer put in 60- to 80-hour weeks.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
My math suuuuuucks, and yet I still totally agree. I don't find myself using it much for LOB applications, but what your typical dev doesn't realize is that those who can only do LOB and nothing else are slowly being replaced by tools like Salesforce, SaaS form generators, etc. And AI is only going to make that worse. Now, does it have to be math expertise as that something extra? IMO nope (basics help though) but a good dev needs _something_ to distinguish themselves. Even if that something is just people skills. This industry is too crowded now for the average, run of the mill coder to be treated like a god just because they know a thing or two about these newfangled computer thingies. Those days are gone. To give an example, I've seen job postings for lawyers where they only wanted a programmer with legal experience. Just saying I can throw a textbox on a screen isn't enough for the better jobs.
Jeremy Falcon
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"Alcohol and Calculus Don't Mix. Don't Drink and Derive."
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Hmm. I received my B.S. in computer engineering in 1984. I earned 205 credit hours, 28 of which were math: Calculus I-IV, differential equations, and matrix algebra. While I've not used a great deal of the math I learned, the experience did help teach a valuable skill: representing real-world problems in abstract form so that they may be addressed in software and/or hardware. It also taught the idea that problems can have multiple solutions and the choice of method can have a profound effect on the outcome.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I would say they cannot be good programmers. Note that the question is not if a one can be a good programmer without knowing freshman calculus. What is being asked (at least in my understanding) is if a person that lacks the mental ability to understand freshman calculus can be a good programmer.
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Short answer: YES. The long answer, (from the long article you linked to) is DUNNO. OK... that's not a long answer either. The real long answer, is: the article is really about whether including calculus in a Computer Science degree is: a) a good idea b) necessary c) putting students off taking CS degrees. (a) and (B) weren't really answered and (c) was: yeah. it is putting people off CS So my conclusions are: - this question would have been more suitable to Quora than Code Project - the article linked to, was very long and mainly pointless - cats are better than dogs - just as relevant as all the other %$&*. :laugh:
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My math suuuuuucks, and yet I still totally agree. I don't find myself using it much for LOB applications, but what your typical dev doesn't realize is that those who can only do LOB and nothing else are slowly being replaced by tools like Salesforce, SaaS form generators, etc. And AI is only going to make that worse. Now, does it have to be math expertise as that something extra? IMO nope (basics help though) but a good dev needs _something_ to distinguish themselves. Even if that something is just people skills. This industry is too crowded now for the average, run of the mill coder to be treated like a god just because they know a thing or two about these newfangled computer thingies. Those days are gone. To give an example, I've seen job postings for lawyers where they only wanted a programmer with legal experience. Just saying I can throw a textbox on a screen isn't enough for the better jobs.
Jeremy Falcon
I've read an article a couple of years ago, about a study in India. They tried to find a correlation between students results in maths and programming. They found none. Whether people were good or bad in math, it didn't make any difference for their programming. However, they did find a strong correlation between language skills and programming.
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yes unless they're aiming to into a math-heavy field like building game engines or simulators, there's a good chance they'll never even need any higher-level math speaking from 25 years as a paid programmer
------------------------------------------------ If you say that getting the money is the most important thing You will spend your life completely wasting your time You will be doing things you don't like doing In order to go on living That is, to go on doing things you don't like doing Which is stupid. - Alan Watts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gXTZM\_uPMY
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If someone is getting a Computer Science degree to be a computer scientist, then yes they should learn all the math as actual CS is heavily math based, with computer science essentially being a specialized area of mathematics. However, if someone is getting a CS degree to become a professional software developer, then for most CS jobs you wont need the math, as many of the replies have pointed out. The biggest issue I see is that somewhere along the way it was decided that to get a job as a developer, a degree in CS (or related field) became required, which is absurd. What is actually needed is more of a "trade school" for software developers that is accepted by the business community. Coding Boot Camps dont cut it as they are just too short, it should be a couple of years of study at least, but focused on software development, not computer science. Which wont happen - the corporate world has turned university studies into de facto trade schools and they're happy with it being that way. So, people who have no need for 3 years of higher math will continue to have to suffer through it, and we will continue to "weed out" people who would otherwise be fine developers for 80% of the programming jobs out there unnecessarily. Of course, there are many programming jobs that DO need that level of math, and those are the jobs that should be listing a CS degree as a requirement. Most jobs should not have that requirement though.
