this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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Programming

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Mathematicians and software (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 months ago by 3h5Hne7t1K@lemmy.world to c/programming@programming.dev
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It is often echoed that mathematicians make excellent software engineers, and that their logic-adjacent work will translate efficiently into coding and designing.

I have found this to be almost universally untrue. I might even say the inverse is true.

While I and many of my peers have capacity to navigate the mathematical world, it certainly is not what sets us (at least me) apart when designing clever algorithms and software tricks.

Point being: I dont think the property/trait that makes good programmers is mathematical literacy.

I would love to hear what others experience is regarding this.

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[–] coltorl@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago

I majored in math and have so far a great career in software. I don’t think knowing math separates me out from CS grads generally. However, math majors largely chose to major in Math because we like problem solving. Plenty of CS grads major in CS because they are expected to. Being a passionate problem solver gets you pretty far.