Is learning math going to have a profound positive impact on my programming skills?
Posted by SecureSection9242@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 14 comments
My question might seem obvious somewhat because learning math is so helpful, but I'm not exactly sure how it can help me level up my skills in programming. I've seen people use third party libraries that already do the hard work and all they have to do is make a simple function call.
I'm curious to know how learning math helped make you a better programming. Please give me some examples of situations where you would have been completely stuck without knowing good math.
InfiltraitorX@reddit
Knowing a bit of math helps you check your code when your use of those third-party libraries gives you a result you weren't expecting.
AncientHominidNerd@reddit
CS is a branch of mathematics. Nearly everything we do is rooted in mathematics and logic. You should learn logic as well.
Need to traverse a 2D array ? You have to do intuitively know to use a row*total columns + column formula.
Need to find all even or odd indexes in an array or linked list? You should naturally know the parity is defined by either 2K or 2k+1.
Need to build a program and your code compiles and runs but the result isn’t what you expect? Well if you know how logic works (which is basically just math order of operations but with data/ideas) then you can trace your data mentally as you read your code and hopefully find the logic bug without having to type throws or error debugging messages to find the error.
Graphs, hashmaps, linked list, etc etc are all math concepts turned CS concepts. If you know the math then you can know how these structures work on a fundamental level.
Nixxen@reddit
Various forms of discrete maths (it's a weird, broad field), mostly yes. It would teach you correctness of code, language semantics, and essentially how to think abstractly about a problem. Other than that, unless you will be doing anything with 3d or physics, you are good with the basics from high school.
mlugo02@reddit
Very helpful to know math in computer graphics. There are tons of libraries that do that math for you but if you don’t know how to apply them they won’t do you any good
flamingspew@reddit
I once had to teach myself linear algebra to write a rigid body physics engine. Had I known linear algebra beforehand, it would have been a much less daunting task.
Melodic_Tragedy@reddit
Depends on the math.
Humble_Warthog9711@reddit
It's not irrelevant but the far better way to improve is to program.
PoMoAnachro@reddit
I think this is kind of a question like "Will running track and field make me a better mountain climber?" They aren't always exactly the same skillset, but they definitely have a lot of overlapping capabilities.
Main thing a beginner programmer has to worry about is growing their ability to focus mentally on hard problems for a prolonged period of time, and keep track of details and abstractions. And math requires those same capabilities.
aanzeijar@reddit
You seem to confuse maths with "dealing with numbers". There are libraries for that, and they do the heavy lifting for you.
But mathematics is about structures and their properties, and a lot of that is very applicable to programming - which started out as a branch of mathematics. It will give you the tools and language to reason about large programs in a way that you can't if you just think about single statements.
A few simple examples:
If you know group theory it is way easier to implement safe data types, because you know what properties each method must have for the whole to be complete.
A lot of the best practices for concurrency and scheduling are based in a grey area between mathematics and computer science.
And of course graph theory, which will be everywhere in programming.
zomgitsduke@reddit
They work so closely together. Programming essentially IS math.
peterlinddk@reddit
It is a really really large question, because most programming doesn't require any math, and the parts that do, only requires you to know that specific branch of math, like you need to know vectors, matrices and trigonometry if you program graphics, and you need to know statistics if you program AI - but you don't really need anything to program web-applications for data-entry.
On the other hand, if you are good at learning math, you'll probably also be good at learning programming, because you are already used to thinking in abstract terms, finding the known and unknown parts in a system, and breaking larger problems into smaller ones. But that only goes if you are also able to abstract the math-problem-solving-skills into something that can also be applied to programming - and that's absolutely no guarantee.
Plenty of programmers suck at math, and plenty of mathematicians don't truly get programming - but on the other hand there's a lot of overlap, but there's also overlap between programming and art, linguistics, engineering, building, gardening, cooking, and loads of other skills! So again, no guarantees ...
Achereto@reddit
Yes. Learning math teaches you to think systematically.
VibrantGypsyDildo@reddit
When you become 1.5-2x times older, yes.
Only at this level you will find applications to your skills.
HashDefTrueFalse@reddit
Thinking about a programming problem is often the same as thinking about a math problem, so in that sense, yes. Beyond that, it really depends what you are making. "learning math" covers quite a lot, and not all math is helpful in solving all problems or writing all software. Maybe the answer depends on whether you want to be the person solving the hard and/or novel problems (e.g. perhaps writing the libraries etc.) or the person consuming them in more run-of-the-mill work.
One example that pops into my head is where I used my understanding of numeral systems to get around the problem that I needed an arbitrarily nested iteration over the combinations of input, the width not known until runtime. So I wrote one loop and did some basic math which treated the width and symbols as a numeral system and calculated the decimal equivalent of largest representable number in the given base to use for the upper bound. It was for an application that allowed designers of gambling games to design and tweak the properties/rules of their games (e.g. a game of slots or roulette) to balance player enjoyment and earnings etc.