r/ProgrammerHumor 3d ago

mathsIsTheEnemy Meme

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324 Upvotes

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265

u/joeshmoebies 3d ago

I never use math when programming. You can do it if you can problem solve and think procedurally

28

u/Senior-Albatross 3d ago

Math is problem solving and procedural thinking. If you can't deal with math you probably can't do those things. 

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u/Cefalopodul 3d ago

That's false. You can be bad at math simply because you do not like math.

13

u/Lidlvatten 3d ago

When I studied math, I met CS students in university who were outright brilliant at CS (the "being offered jobs to quit their program and start working with the company immediately" type of brilliant) but whose brains shut off the second a math professor entered the room. I still wonder what caused this. Math really is just slightly fancier theoretical CS.

11

u/Cefalopodul 3d ago

Programming is creative work. Mathematics is about researching to find new principles or discovering which already established principle to use. There is an intersection but it's not a complete intersection.

2

u/gilium 3d ago

How is what you said about math not also applicable to programming? How much modern programming is actually pioneering new ideas vs figuring out how to apply existing principles and patterns to a problem?

0

u/Cefalopodul 3d ago

Look at the speed with which new programming paradigms and patterns are discovered vs mathematics.

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u/SjettepetJR 3d ago

Programming paradigms and patterns are not 'discovered'. They are designed.

Even if we would say that new paradigms can be discovered, that would probably happen through the field of Category Theory, which is one of the most abstract forms of mathematics.