

Ask HN: I'm crap at maths but I seem to be a pretty good developer - forgottenacc56

Does that make sense? Is it possible to be a good developer who is ordinary at math? Would I get a job anywhere?
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retali8
There is nothing "mathematical" in being a developer, unless your job is
related to math, finance, crypto algorithms, etc...

I've known guys back in my CS classes who got straight A's in the hard CS
theory and had C's in the required calc courses, where the grading curves were
shared by students from all majors.

Let's admit it -- being a developer is like learning a new language -- what's
so different from constructing logical sentences with C# than constructing
logical statements with a foreign language? Yes there is a DIFFERENCE, but
really, the basic building blocks are the same...

When I was 11, I learned c++ with a buddy (also 11) and after school we'd work
on fun little games together. I know I would never cut it in a pure math phd-
type track and he definitely wasn't able to hack it when he got to college and
majored in math -- he dropped out and switched majors halfway.

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CyberFonic
YES it makes sense. Maths, especially as it is taught in college, is mostly
useless for programming. A bit of classical logic and algebra can be useful.
Whilst it is possible to be a self-taught programmer (and many good ones are),
for many people it is effective to take a software engineering course. A good
course will teach you more than just programming. Some theory is useful for
being able to quickly understand advances as they come into wider use.

As for getting a job, there are many avenues to take. The key is to show that
you can and have solved real problems using your skills of analysis, design
and implementation.

Of course, some HN readers will ask "On what basis have you reached the
conclusion that you are a 'pretty good developer'?"

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MichaelCrawford
I'm real good at differential equations. The only time I've used that for
coding was when I wrote my senior thesis for my physics degree.

Being good at verbal reasoning, organizational skills, keeping track of
complex things is far more important than math. Math skills for computing are
way overrated IMHO.

I expect that the notion that we need math to do computing has to do with
early computers being used mostly to design nuclear weapons. That made sense
then but not today.

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Spoom
Many non-programmers think that math is 90% of what we do. They don't realize
that programming is instead mostly logic, not hard math.

99% of a business software developer's math usage is going to be elementary
school algebra or less complicated. If you're doing game development, HFT, or
certain other specialized fields, there will be a lot more math, but that
doesn't apply for the vast majority of programming out there.

~~~
kasey_junk
For the record, I've worked in HFT (and other forms of quantitative finance)
and math was a very small percentage of what I did in any of those industries
as well.

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Avalaxy
You don't need Maths for software engineering, only if you're doing real
computer science that involves complex algorithms. I focus mostly on building
distributed software, never needed maths for that.

