Is mathematics necessary for programming? [closed]

Answer 1

It depends on what you are doing. If you do a lot of 3D programming, knowledge of 3D geometry is certainly necessary, don't you agree? ;-) If you want to create a new image format like JPG or a new audio format like MP3, you are also pretty lost if you can't understand a cosine or fourier transformation, as these are the basics most lossy compression are based on. Many other problems can be resolved better if you know your math rather well.

There are also many other programming tasks you will find do not need much math.

Answer 2

I guess I am going to be the first person to say you do need math. As others have said math is not all that important for certain aspects of development, but the fundamentals of critical thinking and structured analysis are very important.

More so, math is important in understanding a lot of the fundamentals that go into things like schedulers, optimizations, sorting, protocol management, and a number of other aspects of computers. Though the math involved from a calculation level is not complex (its mostly High school algebra) the theories and applications can be quite complex as a solid understanding of math through calculus will be of great benefit.

Can you get by without it, absolutely, and you shouldnt let a less then thorough knowledge of math hold you back, but if you had the chance, or the inclination I would study as much math as you could, calculus, numeric theory, linear algebra, combinatorics, practical applications, all of it has both practical and theoretical applications in a wide range of computer science.

I have known people who were highly successful on both sides of the fence (those without a strong focus on math, and those who went to school for physics or math), but in both groups they enjoyed numerical problems and learning about algorithms and math theory.

Answer 3

Of course it depends on what kind of programmer you want to be, or better what kind of programmer your employers want you to be. I think calculus and algebra are essentials, statistic and linear programming is indeed a good tool to have in your briefcase, maybe analysis (derivative, integrals, functions...) could be done without. But if you want to know how things work skin-deep (electronics, for example, or some non trivial algorhytms) "advanced" math is something you'd better not go without anywhere.

Answer 4

I dont think advanced mathemetics knowledge is a requirement for a good programmer, but based on personal experience I think that programmers who have a better grasp at advanced maths also make better programmers. This may simply be due to a more logical mind, or a more logical outlook due to their experiences of solving mathematical problems.

Answer 5

If you find the subject fascinating enough to post this, just go ahead and start learning. The rest will come naturally.

Answer 6

I've been programming for 8 years professionally, and since I was 12 as a hobby.

Math is not necessary, logic is. Math is horribly helpful though, to say it's not necessary is like saying that to kill a man, a gun isn't necessary, you can use a knife. Well, it is true, but that gun makes it a lot easier.

There are a couple bare minimums, which you should already meet. You need to know basic algebraic expressions and notation, and the common computer equivalents. For example, you need to know what an exponential is (3 to the 3rd is 27), and the common computer expression is 3^3. The common notations for algebra does change between languages, but many of them use a somewhat unified methodology. Others (looking at you LISP) don't. You also need to know order of operations.

You need to understand algorithmic thought. First this, then this, produces this which is used in this calculation. Chances are you understand this or you don't, and it's a fairly hard hurdle to jump if you don't understand it; I've found that this is something you 'get', and not really something you can learn. Conversely, some people don't 'get' art. They should not become painters. Also, there have been students in CS curriculum who cannot figure out why this does not work: x = z + w; z = 3; y = 5; It's not that they don't understand addition, it's that they aren't grasping the requirement of unambiguous express. If they understand it, the computer should too, right? If you can't see what's wrong with the above three lines, then don't become a programmer.

Lastly, you need to know whatever math is under your domain of programming. Accounting software could stop at basic algebra. If you are programming physics, you'll need to know physics (loosely) and math in 3-dimensional geometry (Euclidean). If you're programming architecture software, you'll need to know trigonometry.

This goes farther then math though; whatever domain you are programming for, you need to soundly understand the basics. If you are programming language analysis software, you'll need to know probability, statistics, grammar theory (multiple languages), etc.

Often times, certain domains need, or can benefit from, knowledge you'd think is unrelated. For example, if you were programming audio software, you actually need to know trigonometry to deal with waveforms.

Magnitude changes things also. If you are sorting a financial data set of 1000 items, it's no big thing. If it was 10 million records, however, you would benefit greatly from knowing vector math actually, and having a deep understanding of sorting at the binary level (how does a system sort alphabetically? How does it know 'a' is less than 'b'?)

You are going to find that as a programmer, your general knowledge base is going to explode, because each project will necessitate more learning outside of the direct sphere of programming. If you are squeamish or lazy about self-learning, and do not like the idea of spending 10+ hours a week doing essentially 'homework', do not become a programmer.

If you like thought exercises, if you like learning, if you can think about abstract things like math without a calculator or design without a sketchpad, if you have broad tastes in life and hobbies, if you are self-critical and can throw away 'favorited' ideas, if you like perfecting things, then become a programmer. Do not base this decision on math, but rather, the ability to think logically and learn. Those are what is important; math is just the by-product.