Re: Mathematics

On 3 May 2005 16:15:17 -0700, Steve
<risteve940@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Do you need to be good in mathematics to be a good programmer? I never
> was good in math, except for the basics
> (addition/subtraction/multiplication and division). Anything beyond
> that waved bye bye to me a *long* time ago... I appreciate the
> calculator more and more. I always found math boring, but find
> computers and programming tremendously fascinating.

Since you seem to confuse mathematics with arithmetic, you may well
have problems.

No, you don't need to be able to do arithmetic ("addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division") to be a good programmer. Arithmetic is
what the computer is designed to do.

However, at least simple algebra is pretty essential, and more
importantly knowledge of boolean logic (and/or/xor/not and shifting
bits) if you are going to be doing anything with communication protocols
(you mention TCP/IP for instance, that involves checksums and "bit
twiddling").

More importantly, you need language skills. Mathematics is primarily a
language, computer languages do tend to be based on mathematical ways of
thinking (although not completely, something as simple as x := x+1 can
throw a mathematician!).

> I really have my heart set on wanting to develop internet and
> hardware related applications for DOS and Windows written in the C/C++
> and Object Pascal (Turbo Pascal and Delphi) programming languages. The
> types of applications I wish to develop are things such as: TCP/IP
> clients and servers, serial communications utilities, file manipulation
> utilities, etc. I should also mention that I don't intend to make
> programming a career...

Evidently not, since such things are pretty much solved problems already
(anything on DOS is either solved or dead). TCP/IP stacks are not in
need of re-inventing except on obscure embedded platforms, and even
those often use "off the shelf" open source software and tweak it a bit.
The main area of innovation left is in user interfaces to the existing
facilities and utilities, hence the number of "search for something in a
file" applications, the actual search part is pretty much solved and
standard, it's the user interface which changes.

Which is a problem for you and me, those who like to work at the "low
level" interesting stuff, because there aren't as many jobs for that...

Chris C
.

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