Programming and Math...

freddster said:
and who has time for that? ALMOST no one...
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Not true. Most people do but as with most things in life, it's a question of motivation. Are you motivated enough to sacrifice on free time and family in order to reach your goal?
A colleague just finished her MBA at GIBS while working on average 14 hours a day. She booked herself into a hotel next to the office, some nights, because of exhaustion and not having time to travel home.
That's sacrifice and how she's still married, I don't know.

People tend to not push themselves close to their full potential.
 
freddster said:
and who has time for that? ALMOST no one...
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Lol. You have no idea :) I have lots of free time. I get 35 days leave as well. I take them all. We are literally forced to :) No that does not include public holidays or weekends.
 
zippy said:
Lol. You have no idea :) I have lots of free time. I get 35 days leave as well. I take them all. We are literally forced to :) No that does not include public holidays or weekends.
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Where do you work that they give you 35 days of leave, and are they hiring?

Government?
 
I lean the way of saying that it depends on which task you are out to accomplish.

Some of the best developers that I know are extremely good at math.

I believe that a good memory helps too because things can become very complex, polynominals are very common and your ability to understand each and every aspect and result / layer of everything is somewhat key to obtaining the end result.

I remember an interesting example of an extremely good software developer from Russia who when he started out having no access to a computer. He learnt to code by writing the code out on paper and testing it all on his head then when given the chance, input it all into a computer and run the thing to see that it was working as he had expected... Which is mostly did.
 
It is hard to me to believe you are going to quickly grasp the logic of a programming language if you cannot grasp the logic behind basic mathematics. That is the big reason why maths is something every SA child has to do. It is not because the government wants everyone to become an engineer or a physicist but because virtually all work environments ask there employees to use logic in an attempt to solve some sort of problem.
 
Ancalagon said:
Where do you work that they give you 35 days of leave, and are they hiring?

Government?
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private sector. Financial services. There is a shortage of skilled developers in the UK. Note I said "skilled" :)

I usually take 2 weeks in June/July and 2 weeks in Nov/Dec and then then a Monday or Friday to take the odd weekend for spin to Dublin or Paris. My fav cities.
 
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zippy said:
Lol. You have no idea :) I have lots of free time. I get 35 days leave as well. I take them all. We are literally forced to :) No that does not include public holidays or weekends.
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aAAAH, just saw you're on Mud Island. too wet there to even code a lot LOL EJOY. Different story in SA. Here they want you to code 24 hours a day... A buddy of mine , in storage, was told, you're in IT, you always need to be available.
 
freddster said:
aAAAH, just saw you're on Mud Island. too wet there to even code a lot LOL EJOY. Different story in SA. Here they want you to code 24 hours a day... A buddy of mine , in storage, was told, you're in IT, you always need to be available.
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True story.

I was fortunate enough to only be called once during my holiday break. It pays to code properly, and handover best you can. Give support the tools they need and they won't bother you... so much.
 
freddster said:
aAAAH, just saw you're on Mud Island. too wet there to even code a lot LOL EJOY. Different story in SA. Here they want you to code 24 hours a day... A buddy of mine , in storage, was told, you're in IT, you always need to be available.
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I worked for many years in IT in SA. Only occasionally had to work on Saturday. Normal hours. In my current job I am part of a release and call out rota for a week. Comes around about every 14 weeks. Release means once or twice a week I need to log in from home, release some updates to production, set flags off(to hold docs and emails to customers) while UAT do some spot checks(we call this the "release sanity check" :) ). When they sign, I clear the hold flags and log off. Done by 11pm. In 7 years I have never been called out on a callout. Still get paid £40 a night just to be on callout, which means I need to 1 hour away from being able to log in .

Occasionally for some projects I need to put an extra hours. I think I may have logged overtime on a project maybe 2 or 3 times in 7 years.
 
CorrieDeBeer said:
It is hard to me to believe you are going to quickly grasp the logic of a programming language if you cannot grasp the logic behind basic mathematics. That is the big reason why maths is something every SA child has to do. It is not because the government wants everyone to become an engineer or a physicist but because virtually all work environments ask there employees to use logic in an attempt to solve some sort of problem.
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I disagree, math can be very beneficial to development; but you don't need math to be logical, and you often don't need math for generic development jobs (I'd consider most problem domains in the average dev job to be of a non-mathematical nature).

The biggest development skill for me is the ability to make a sequential list (ie algorithmic) which serves to solve or define a problem, which in itself is also possibly made up of many other smaller lists that we'll re-use, organise and schedule as needed. Even without much math, if you are very well mentally organised and able to clearly follow the logical chain of events through such a list while translating it into code, then you're already on your way to being a good developer.

The math for me comes in only later, such as where you need to solve a specific advanced problem or where it allows you to perform a superior manipulation on for example data.
 
animal531 said:
I disagree, math can be very beneficial to development; but you don't need math to be logical, and you often don't need math for generic development jobs (I'd consider most problem domains in the average dev job to be of a non-mathematical nature).

The biggest development skill for me is the ability to make a sequential list (ie algorithmic) which serves to solve or define a problem, which in itself is also possibly made up of many other smaller lists that we'll re-use, organise and schedule as needed. Even without much math, if you are very well mentally organised and able to clearly follow the logical chain of events through such a list while translating it into code, then you're already on your way to being a good developer.

The math for me comes in only later, such as where you need to solve a specific advanced problem or where it allows you to perform a superior manipulation on for example data.
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Category theory, Set theory, ...
Skilled programmers usually understand the underlying mechanics of collection types, even to the point of building these.
 
biometrics said:
What is "clean Math"?

I was good at high school maths, university not so much (too theoretical for my taste). I think if high school maths comes naturally to you then you're likely to be good at coding. Especially algebra.

Note I'm referring to 80's school maths here ...
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Agree about the pure maths. You should have done applied maths. Now that was fun! :love:
 
Well it's interesting to talk about, but definitely necessary seeing as you need maths to get a qualification and then they even teach you math in some places as part of the course.

that **** wouldn't be there if math wasn't important
 
UsernameLadiesMan217 said:
Well it's interesting to talk about, but definitely necessary seeing as you need maths to get a qualification and then they even teach you math in some places as part of the course.

that **** wouldn't be there if math wasn't important
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In the 90's one actually had to do maths to second year (applied maths 2 or stats 2 were also acceptable) in order to get a computer science degree. Now only 1st year is required (standards are slipping).
 
Hey guys

Sorry for reviving an old thread.

My problem is that I was always quite good at maths and I enjoyed it too, but it all went downhill in my matric year for various reasons. Anyway now I'm studying something that isn't math heavy at all, so I'm brushing up on my math skills via khanacademy. I'd just like to know which branches of maths would be most useful for programming.

Thanks
 
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