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Steve Baker
MYTH #1: You don’t need a whole lot of math knowledge to learn to program a computer…but you do need some basic stuff:
That’s plenty enough basic math to understand how to program - and you should have learned all of that in high school had you paid attention.
MYTH #2: Learning how to program is not the same thing as being able to write programs for some specific purpose.
Learning to program is only the first step. If all you want to do is add a little Javascript to a website to make it look better and react to user input - that’ll probably be enough.
However, most fields of programming require more. If you want to write computer games for a living, you’ll need a good deal of geometry, trig and to be very comfortable with vector algebra and matrices. If you want to get into scientific programming and simulation, you’ll need calculus and statistics, and probably a bunch of other stuff too - depending on which sub-field you get into. If you want to get into financial software, you’ll need statistics and probably some other stuff too.
Each field where software is applied tends to need certain special math skills that are specific to that field.
That said, I’ve been in games and simulation for 40 years - and have never needed my high school calculus knowledge (which is just as well because it’s sadly rotted away from lack of use!) - but I wish I’d learned more vector algebra. I’ve learned enough of it now - but getting to that point was painful.
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MYTH #1: You don’t need a whole lot of math knowledge to learn to program a computer…but you do need some basic stuff:
- You’ll need a little, very basic, algebra (given a simple equation like [math](x+3)=6[/math], find the value of x and given something like: [math]x = 3y+10[/math], rearrange the equation in terms of y).
- You’ll need to know enough arithmetic to add, subtract, multiply and divide…and you’ll need to know what raising to a power and taking the square root of a number means.
- You’ll need to understand boolean logic (AND, OR, NOT and XOR) and how to combine them. (Is (A and not C) the same thing as (A or C)?)
- It would be helpful to understand binary and hexadecimal numbers.
That’s plenty enough basic math to understand how to program - and you should have learned all of that in high school had you paid attention.
MYTH #2: Learning how to program is not the same thing as being able to write programs for some specific purpose.
Learning to program is only the first step. If all you want to do is add a little Javascript to a website to make it look better and react to user input - that’ll probably be enough.
However, most fields of programming require more. If you want to write computer games for a living, you’ll need a good deal of geometry, trig and to be very comfortable with vector algebra and matrices. If you want to get into scientific programming and simulation, you’ll need calculus and statistics, and probably a bunch of other stuff too - depending on which sub-field you get into. If you want to get into financial software, you’ll need statistics and probably some other stuff too.
Each field where software is applied tends to need certain special math skills that are specific to that field.
That said, I’ve been in games and simulation for 40 years - and have never needed my high school calculus knowledge (which is just as well because it’s sadly rotted away from lack of use!) - but I wish I’d learned more vector algebra. I’ve learned enough of it now - but getting to that point was painful.
See Questions On Quora
Continue reading...
