Math Skills For Programmers - Necessary Or Not?
Reza Iranmanesh
My opinion:
I have seen four categories of people in this field:
1- Academic people: The assumption is that they know lots of maths.
but it's not always true. If they know no math they should be drawn,
quartered, hung, shot, poisoned, disembowelled, and then REALLY hurt.
After doing all this you could degrade them to category 3 or 4.
2- Programmers: I love them. They always do the best with a small set
of tools. It doesn't mean that they don't know new stuff. it's simply
because they are KISS(keep it simple, stupid) lovers. These guys are
wizards, they bring up solutions out of nowhere. They know maths, and
they know computers.
3- Geeks: When you see their code, you say wow, wow, wow! However you
always prefer programmers. Why? Programmers know to solve problems,
but geeks know to glue together others' solutions. They are
illusionists. Once you know their trick(the set of tools they use)
they are no more interesting to you. They have computer skills but
know no maths.
4- Coders/Businessmen: They should not get a job that requires
programming. They are no better than Steve Ballmer. They pretend to do
good, but the outcome is all evil. They sometimes throw chairs at
people in above categories too, seriously! They are devils in
disguise. They have no computer skills and no math.
I tell you what...
a person with combined skills of 1&4 is the most horrible thing you
will experience in your life. Combination of 1&2 is the best thing
that can occur during your studies.
Wong Ya Ping
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/03/25/0312233/Math-Skills-For-Programmers---Necessary-Or-Not?art_pos=1
My opinion:
I have seen four categories of people in this field:
1- Academic people: The assumption is that they know lots of maths.
but it's not always true. If they know no math they should be drawn,
quartered, hung, shot, poisoned, disembowelled, and then REALLY hurt.
After doing all this you could degrade them to category 3 or 4.
Many academic people are also nothing more than tool users. They can show you all kind of wonderful things, but a closer look will reveal that those are nothing more than output of some expensive tools/software, they are just making stories about the output to make them look smart and make you look dumb.
Hmm... not all academic people are like that. You should divide this into two category, one that know lots of maths, and one that do not.
2- Programmers: I love them. They always do the best with a small set
of tools. It doesn't mean that they don't know new stuff. it's simply
because they are KISS(keep it simple, stupid) lovers. These guys are
wizards, they bring up solutions out of nowhere. They know maths, and
they know computers.
A lot of people who called themselves programmers are also tool users and libraries callers. These people are more suitable to be called geeks.
3- Geeks: When you see their code, you say wow, wow, wow! However you
always prefer programmers. Why? Programmers know to solve problems,
but geeks know to glue together others' solutions. They are
illusionists. Once you know their trick(the set of tools they use)
they are no more interesting to you. They have computer skills but
know no maths.
that is right. Sadly a lot of geeks wrongly considered themselves programmers. I remember long ago, I did mention this in this forum.
4- Coders/Businessmen: They should not get a job that requires
programming. They are no better than Steve Ballmer. They pretend to do
good, but the outcome is all evil. They sometimes throw chairs at
people in above categories too, seriously! They are devils in
disguise. They have no computer skills and no math.
True for the businessmen. I have friends who worked for big companies selling high-tech stuff, they can talk as if they are really experts in those software, but in actual fact, they are just memorizing some facts.
Why call them coder?
I tell you what...
a person with combined skills of 1&4 is the most horrible thing you
will experience in your life.
yes, that is right. But (1) here is with assumption those who do not know lots of maths. :)
Combination of 1&2 is the best thing
that can occur during your studies.
haha....I am a mathematics major in bachelor and master, and all the subjects I thought in MMU are programming and algorithms intensive courses. Any surprise? BUt I have to confess i am far from being great... :)
Frankly, the article is very correct, I have been saying this over a decade now.
Having said that, I believe the way and the kind of mathematics taught in a computer science related faculties can not be taught like in a mathematics faculty.
There is no limit on how much mathematics are useful for you, you will never know. Generally of course, subject like Linear Algebra (Matrix Computations etc.), Discrete maths of course, probability, calculus, geometries etc. are the most fundementals any computer scientist should know.
Btw, I learn programming on my own before entering the university, in my school, i done a database project and decided that CRUD is simply too boring for me.
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