#Programming #Mathematics #SkillsDevelopment
Hey there, fellow learners! 🌟
I’ve been pondering on the relationship between programming and maths recently, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts. So, let’s dive right in with a burning question: “Would you say Programming improves your maths skills?”
Here are a few points to consider:
– Have you found that learning functions in programming helps with understanding mathematical functions?
– Which areas of maths have you personally found most commonly used in programming?
– Do you think there are specific aspects of programming that have enhanced your grasp of maths concepts?
From my personal experience, understanding programming has definitely made certain maths concepts clearer for me. For instance, the logic and reasoning skills I’ve developed through coding have improved my problem-solving abilities in maths.
I believe that the analytical thinking required for programming can greatly benefit one’s mathematical skills as well. By breaking down complex problems into smaller, manageable chunks, we can approach both programming and maths with a more strategic mindset.
So, what do you think? I’d love to hear your insights and experiences on this topic! Let’s explore the intriguing connections between programming and maths together. 💭💡
Looking forward to your responses! 🚀
nope
You can treat ∑ (sigma) like it’s a for loop or range too
It depends like if you work with 3d graphics for example you will have to learn linear algebra and programming might help with visualizing the concepts so that you understand them better.
To me, the correlation between math and programming is the ability to learn math, and not the math(s) itself.
There’s a lot of terminology in math which can feel very abstract. There’s a lot of terminology in programming too.
The idea is something like: if you can learn calculus, you can learn programming. This isn’t always true because programming can get complicated (in particular, how to organize your code, how to use a build tool, etc) in a way math doesn’t get complicated. I know people that are great at math, but don’t like programming at all due to its arbitrary nature.
I don’t know whether a knowledge of programming would help with math. Perhaps? I think many people get math-phobia when they’re young. They’re convinced they can’t learn math, and then just stop looking at it. When they hear that they might need math to do programming, it might help them to revisit math and discover that they can do math, after all.
To me, that’s how it could help.
I’m not sure if it impacts math ability but I do feel like there can be an impact on general analytical ability which, in turn, could “improve” one’s ability to math. A horrible example in my personal experiences is with words. Prior to programming, I would see a phrase like “The red ball” And think about a red ball. After a year or so of programming, if I were to see “the red ball”, my first thought would be a string array of 11 elements. (Beginning at 0, including spaces)
In that example it’s pretty obvious my math ability didn’t change as i was already capable of counting to 12. However, I definitely did look at things more analytically after learning to program.
This is why I specifically chose to use the word impact to describe the change because from my own personal experience I’m not sure if my analytical ability actually improved or if I simply wasn’t using it as much prior to starting to learn how to program.
I’ve actually been pondering this exact question in recent weeks from a broader sense and plan on discussion with some friends in various mental health fields. Does learning to program have an impact on analytical ability of an individual?
Actually makes the continuous math worse, since you’re discreet approaches to find solutions (i.e. approximations of a number).
Also takes something simple (division) and makes it complicated to actually perform.
Made it worse for me 😂
Not really. You get better at logic.
In my experience, they help each other.
I started programming at 7. Through elementary school and high school, I learned quite a few things about math because I needed them for my programs, particularly for 3D graphics. This gave me a huge leg up on math. I went on to do very well in math competitions in high school and I ended up studying math in college and some grad school.
My job now involves both math and programming, and in some ways I view both activities as being two flavors of the same thing.
It won’t be just math. Problem solving skills improves too. It’s basically like working out. You’re working out a certain skill by using that skill. The more you use it, the better it gets.
I suddenly “got” fractions to an extent. So maybe!
I’m a way yes. I don’t think it directly correlates to improved math skills. I do think that you get a better sense of logical flow from programming which can help when learning math because math often follows a logical flow when you’re solving a math problem.
I’d say it helps in a way. as you aim for better performance and cleaner coding style, sometimes math tweaks would help a lot. especially now people are doing a bunch of computations with programming, which is essentially messing around with matrices.
It depends. Doing math improves your math skills. I forget math pretty fast if I’m not using it.. And the math I use in programming is pretty simple. I took calc 1-3, discrete math, physics 1 & 2, 2 statistics classes, & linear algebra and forgot most of what I learned within a few months of finishing the courses. It has to be used to retain it. Although I could relearn it way faster and easier again if needed.
My advice would be to apply math to programming projects to improve your depth of understanding while learning math. So here are some examples, for calculus, create a numerical solver for differential equations like fluid dynamics, using methods like Runge-Kutta and visualizing the results. For physics, simulate planetary motion with Newtonian mechanics and differential equations, incorporating real data. In linear algebra, build a recommendation system using matrix factorization and singular value decomposition, handling large datasets. These projects integrate practical coding with advanced math concepts. I’m sure you can think up more relevant examples for yourself if you end up taking these courses.
Personally, after programming for a while, math felt easier and more fun to do. I did not really like math before I started coding.
I personally think anyone good at pure math can code well if she or he wants to.
Programming was invented by people too lazy to do math. Math was then improved upon with programming.
considering that, from a certain point of view, [programs are proofs,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry%E2%80%93Howard_correspondence) and considering that the field of proof assistants is fast-growing, i’d say that the skills for programming and math are at the very complimentary.
No but it flexes the logic muscles which could help make math easier to learn.
Yes. It’s LITERALLY the same discipline.
Common areas? You got category theory in SQL, you got lambda calculus in FP and lambdas, you got numerical numbers, you got logic, you got abstraction, optimization, heuristics. Only the automata theory stuff skew aways from maths and enters into linguistics
Everything you do in programming can be modeled through set theory, which is a branch of maths
Programming is executing operations on data
Math is executing operations on data
Same discipline. Literally.
I think it depends on what type of development you do but programming forces you to constantly learn new things which is useful for learning any skill.
For Programming itself ? No.
For some jobs using Programming? Absolutely.
I seem to find that math is waaaaaaay more involved in certain aspects of programming.
Encryption, compression, image enhancements and similar things rely heavily on very complicated math, while you can probably program most daily use applications without knowing more than the basic operations.
Skills mostly don’t transfer between domains. However, programming can give you a good reason to learn math to do something you want to do. I got motivated to refresh my 20 years unused linear algebra for a personal project.
Absolutely. My experience with programming made it easier to learn group theory.
Both math and programming are abstractions. If you can wrap your head around the abstractions of one you can wrap your head around the abstractions of the other.
Programming allows me to visualize and experiment with math, and better understand what is going on with it.
I use MATLAB when I have a formula, operation or whatever new\old math stuff that I am trying to get a better grasp of and even just understand what it’s doing, and I experiment and visualize for myself.
Something that I wouldn’t have from doing it by hand.
I find that linear algebra and basic calculus is most commonly used for me, but that’s mainly cause I’m Electrical Engineer. I do 99% back-end and algorithms (which are math).
Nah, I barely use math, my work more about architecture and logic. And yes, logic were boosted dramatically. And ability to learn new things from shitty documentations, too.:)