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Do you need to be good at math to be a programmer?

Jima Victor on January 14, 2022

So you want to get into programming or you've already been programming and you've been hearing a lot of people saying you need to be good at math i...
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ishanpro profile image
Ishan Tiwari

Yes, the fields which matter the most are Statistical Mathematics and basic Arithmetic amongst many others.

Maths is a useful tool. It has so many applications that you can't run away from it.

Even If frontend Developers don't need "advanced math" they need basic mathematics to solve problems in margins, padding, box-layout and more things like that.

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neoprint3d profile image
Drew Ronsman

Yeah I need to build some basic algorithm for recommending users and having assigning weight to it. Advance math really helps solve a lot of problems

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ravavyr profile image
Ravavyr

The funny thing here is, ray tracers are pretty damn hard to do. You've just been doing it so long you don't think it's "that math-heavy" anymore lol.

I've seen many a game dev curse for hours and hours trying to make custom ray tracers and shaders :)

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mistval profile image
Randall

I like to say that 99% of the math I do as a programmer is adding one to something.

Outside of certain domains, advanced math is rarely needed for programming.

But I think there's a lot of overlap between people who are good at math and people who are good at programming, because the way good mathematicians and good programmers approach problems can be very similar. Breaking it down into smaller parts, deriving intermediate results and building them up into the final result, etc.

So I'd say that having/developing a mathematical mind will help you be a good programmer, but understanding advanced math concepts is rarely necessary.

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ravavyr profile image
Ravavyr

Those For loops are sure skewing the data ;)

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dinhanhx

I agree with you. One don't need to be good at math to be a programmer. However, one should know (as in how to carry on basic math operations or to use internet to search for formula). Honestly, I am not good at math but I'm good at instructing the machine (programming) to do math.

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Jima Victor

I really appreciate your knowledge of this

 
ravavyr profile image
Ravavyr

That's the other thing, there are so many different resources available now, but many tutorials aren't written professionally so you only get half the info you need or in some cases they go "install X" and move on, leaving you spending half a day figuring out how to install X before you can continue.
Thanks for that link.

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ravavyr profile image
Ravavyr

Personally I think Programming requires a certain level of "mathiness" in a person.

Where Web Development [which is what I do] requires far less and is far simpler to do. Web is also more artistic in that much of what we do is "in the eye of the beholder" versus strict rules to follow. And we're beholden to "the design" and "business needs" that are about as fixed as a drunk guy stumbling out of a bar at 3am. What makes web hard is keeping up with the changes and being flexible enough to adjust everything on a whim in the interfaces, little math involved.

When writing programs, eg desktop stuff like microsoft office, filezilla, or browsers, etc, there's a lot more "mathiness" to them, where most websites at most handle some click events and have a few database queries that don't get more complex than joining two tables. Game development is also programming as far as the mathy complexity goes. When dealing with matrixes or 3D object manipulation/detection, those things get "mathy" quick. If you don't think those thngs are mathy, it's because you're a mathy person who gets it. A great many of us, just don't.

There are exceptions to every rule and every generalization has holes in it, but this is what i stand by.

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Jima Victor

Well said friend!👏 👏

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Jake Carpenter

I got a degree on the business side with a focus on software development. I was a calculus class short of a minor in CS. I took a lot of programming courses with CS students though, and don’t regret avoiding CS at all. The math would have frustrated me for nothing.

Not to say that the marketing course didn’t frustrate me…but at least that was just one course.

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Harshad pk

I agree. but with enough practice, anyone can become good at math. just like programming.

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Max Ong Zong Bao • Edited

Not much to the point you need in a job. Unless your interviewing for FAANG then you will need it, but other than you won't really need a lot of it to be effective and successful as a developer.

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Lucas Nogueira

Great article, friend! Congrats

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Jima Victor

Thanks!

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cess11 profile image
PNS11

Do you need to be good at graphic design to work with it?

No, but you'll likely have to sell your labour cheaper than those who are.