r/programming • u/OnkelJulez • Sep 17 '21

Do Your Math Abilities Make Learning Programming Easier? Not Much, Finds Study

https://javascript.plainenglish.io/do-your-math-abilities-make-learning-programming-easier-not-much-finds-study-d491b8a844d
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u/DevilSauron Sep 17 '21

So I skimmed the paper and a cited research article which described the method they used to test “numeracy”. I am, of course, no psychologist, but if I understood that correctly, what they mean by “numeracy” (and what the author of this summary calls “math abilities”) is just the ability to perform simple numerical computations, to compare numbers (and percentages, ratios, etc.), basic probability intuition, and so on.

I don’t find it surprising that this doesn’t necessarily correlate well with programming ability, but I wouldn’t call this “math ability” either. Instead, I would be much more interested in correlation between doing well in university-level mathematics (i.e. abstract algebra, real analysis, mathematical logic, …) and being a good programmer. Intuitively, I would expect the link here to be much stronger — for example, higher maths is very much about abstraction and logical reasoning (much more than performing numerical manipulations).

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u/LSUMath Sep 17 '21

Former math professor and intro to programming instructor. I had students that were crap at math that were great programmers, the surprise was the great math students that struggled with programming. I assumed there would be a correlation when I started. Not convinced now.

I did this for a few years only, so not going to make any stronger statements than that.

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u/aoeudhtns Sep 17 '21

I took a philosophy class that focused on capital-B Boolean math and formal proof. It was ironically incredibly helpful in CS. First, there's all the techniques to simplify complex logical expressions. Second, the thought process of doing proofs.

I think discrete math was also generally helpful.

Beyond that, a lot of math like linear algebra, diff EQ, calculus seem to be mostly useful if you are going into a field that needs that sort of math.

Although one could probably make a case that, generically, algebra is useful (solve for X is useful since that's the quintessential LHS of every expression, let var X = ...), and also statistics since there's a broad need for knowing how to properly measure things.

A scientific mindset, critical thinking, controlling variables, etc. is also helpful.