[Koshkin]

It's good to have something that lowers the bar for programmers so they could learn themselves some math without much fear. Knowing math is very important if you are a coder - and not just linear algebra: knowing a formula, for example, might let you do certain things in constant rather than linear time or, perhaps, reduce the cost of the iteration. Unfortunately, too many of those who can call themselves programmers by trade know very little math (you'd be lucky if they remember what they learned in high school).

[aphextron]

Seconded for this. Going back and taking an actual structured math course at community college after working professionally as a programmer for years was a real eye opening experience for me. So many things that seemed so abstract and meaningless as a 12 year old were instantly apparently useful in an unimaginable number of ways.

[teej]

What courses did you take?

[aphextron]

>What courses did you take?

Nothing advanced, just Trig, Geometry (proofs based), Algebra and Precalculus. Basically what a sharp high school senior in college prep classes would be familiar with. Geometry was probably the best. If you've never encountered formal proofs before, it's probably the best training for pure logic I can imagine. They start out incredibly frustrating but become addictive once you figure out how to crack them. Precalc was insanely useful too. Learning how to build up a function and shape it with various operators, and work with polynomials is absolutely essential for things like graphics shaders and timing functions and all kinds of other stuff that comes up in UI development (my work). All I can say is that it will give you a much greater appreciation for studying the purely abstract rather than always focusing on practical matters that come up in engineering, as well as making apparent more elegant solutions you may have brute forced in the past.

[DevoidSimo]

Where are you that high school only covers up to precalculus? In Australia (depending on the level) you do multivariate calculus among other things. Perhaps other subjects aren't covered as deeply.

[aphextron]

>Where are you that high school only covers up to precalculus? In Australia (depending on the level) you do multivariate calculus among other things. Perhaps other subjects aren't covered as deeply.

I'm from the US. The state of mathematics education here is absolutely embarrassing to pretty much any other developed country. Taking precalculus is actually considered advanced, most students graduate with nothing more than an "Algebra" class that covers basic algebraic notation, quadratic equations, linear equations, and not much beyond that. Calculus 1 (single variable) is considered an advanced math class that is only taken by STEM majors for freshman university students here.

[oblib]

That's really me to a "tee". I just never had a teacher in high school who really understood more than basic math, and I went to work instead of college afterwards.

I expect I'll have to work at it to follow this book but that's why I need something like this. And I need to spend some time with Python too so I'm looking forward to digging into it.

[Snowe]

I started on the Project Euler problems years ago, and like most naive coders I took the brute force route. After discovering the problems have a deeper mathematical basis I decided to start again and learn some math. Wikipedia illustrates with the first problem, the difference in elegance and efficiency knowing some math can make. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Euler

[Waterluvian]

I'm sorry if this isn't your intent but the way you structured your comment comes off as very condescending.

Aside from that, I'm also skeptical that the frequency in which these maths apply to practical, commercial programming is really that high.

Im not anti math or something. I just think the practical value gets way over sold by some people. And sometimes it feels like it's because of the dislike of "those who can call themselves programmers by trade."

[codesushi42]

It is an incredibly important foundation for analyzing any kind of data. That is a need that crosses many different fields, be it sales forecasting, quantitative finance, econometrics, deep learning, signal processing, any sort of scientific computing etc.

I would be more interested in hearing an argument about why math knowledge is not useful or lucrative.

[chrisbroadfoot]

If anything, I think the practical value of mathematics is generally undersold. It seems OK if some people tend to oversell it.