[CODE4LIB] Math or the other math?
You mean discrete mathematics? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_mathematics I always kicked myself for not taking that course at high school (UK readers, I mean secondary school) but at least I picked up the basics during my physics MSci (a lot of physics these days is coding). Cheers, m -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Ken Irwin Sent: 27 February 2013 13:53 To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] back to minorities question, seeking guidance What both Kelly and David say is true here: David: programming needs math, not arithmetic. Kelly: computers are good at arithmetic on their own. To which I'll add: the related skill that I see as necessary here is quantitative reasoning - not the crunching of numbers but the correct assembly of the formulae, articulating the systematization of the problem. What I'm less certain of is what sort of training tend to lead to that sort of conceptual skill. Ken On Feb 27, 2013, at 8:44 AM, David Faler dfa...@tlcdelivers.com wrote: I think math is essential, but what they teach in schools these days isn't math. It's arithmetic. Some intro philosophy courses teach math. I'll stop before I start ranting. On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 12:04 AM, Kelly Lucas klu...@isovera.com wrote: On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 2:57 AM, Thomas Krichel kric...@openlib.org wrote: Wilhelmina Randtke writes Pretty much the whole entire entry level programming class for the average class covers using code to do things that you can do much more easily without code. Probably it was the wrong course. I think coding should start with building web pages. A calculator can't do that. Cheers, Thomas Krichelhttp://openlib.org/home/krichel http://authorprofile.org/pkr1 skype: thomaskrichel -- Kelly R. Lucas Senior Developer Isovera, Inc. klu...@isovera.com http://www.isovera.com http://drupal.org/user/271780 twitter: @bp1101
Re: [CODE4LIB] Math or the other math?
+1 mostly to the thread Programming seems to me -- just me here -- stratified like any other profession, in particular by access or lack of access to computer science within software dev. There are other factors. But computer science seems now heavily invested in math. -- Al Matthews Software Developer, Digital Services Unit Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library email: amatth...@auctr.edu; office: 1 404 978 2057 On 2/27/13 9:17 AM, Michael Hopwood mich...@editeur.org wrote: You mean discrete mathematics? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_mathematics I always kicked myself for not taking that course at high school (UK readers, I mean secondary school) but at least I picked up the basics during my physics MSci (a lot of physics these days is coding). Cheers, m -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Ken Irwin Sent: 27 February 2013 13:53 To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] back to minorities question, seeking guidance What both Kelly and David say is true here: David: programming needs math, not arithmetic. Kelly: computers are good at arithmetic on their own. To which I'll add: the related skill that I see as necessary here is quantitative reasoning - not the crunching of numbers but the correct assembly of the formulae, articulating the systematization of the problem. What I'm less certain of is what sort of training tend to lead to that sort of conceptual skill. Ken On Feb 27, 2013, at 8:44 AM, David Faler dfa...@tlcdelivers.com wrote: I think math is essential, but what they teach in schools these days isn't math. It's arithmetic. Some intro philosophy courses teach math. I'll stop before I start ranting. On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 12:04 AM, Kelly Lucas klu...@isovera.com wrote: On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 2:57 AM, Thomas Krichel kric...@openlib.org wrote: Wilhelmina Randtke writes Pretty much the whole entire entry level programming class for the average class covers using code to do things that you can do much more easily without code. Probably it was the wrong course. I think coding should start with building web pages. A calculator can't do that. Cheers, Thomas Krichelhttp://openlib.org/home/krichel http://authorprofile.org/pkr1 skype: thomaskrichel -- Kelly R. Lucas Senior Developer Isovera, Inc. klu...@isovera.com http://www.isovera.com http://drupal.org/user/271780 twitter: @bp1101 - ** The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential. They are intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager or the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to anyone or make copies. ** IronMail scanned this email for viruses, vandals and malicious content. ** **
Re: [CODE4LIB] Math or the other math?
From a physics point of view, computer science looks about 50% discrete math, and 50% engineering (since computers, fancy as they may be, are simply machines, and have specific physical constraints that it may be helpful to understand). Actual coding nowadays, I assume, may sometimes actually have a lot in common with language arts (UK readers: we don't study language arts. Sorry...) but it's worth noting that logic is the common factor between language arts and math. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Al Matthews Sent: 27 February 2013 14:28 To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Math or the other math? +1 mostly to the thread Programming seems to me -- just me here -- stratified like any other profession, in particular by access or lack of access to computer science within software dev. There are other factors. But computer science seems now heavily invested in math. -- Al Matthews Software Developer, Digital Services Unit Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library email: amatth...@auctr.edu; office: 1 404 978 2057 On 2/27/13 9:17 AM, Michael Hopwood mich...@editeur.org wrote: You mean discrete mathematics? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_mathematics I always kicked myself for not taking that course at high school (UK readers, I mean secondary school) but at least I picked up the basics during my physics MSci (a lot of physics these days is coding). Cheers, m -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Ken Irwin Sent: 27 February 2013 13:53 To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] back to minorities question, seeking guidance What both Kelly and David say is true here: David: programming needs math, not arithmetic. Kelly: computers are good at arithmetic on their own. To which I'll add: the related skill that I see as necessary here is quantitative reasoning - not the crunching of numbers but the correct assembly of the formulae, articulating the systematization of the problem. What I'm less certain of is what sort of training tend to lead to that sort of conceptual skill. Ken On Feb 27, 2013, at 8:44 AM, David Faler dfa...@tlcdelivers.com wrote: I think math is essential, but what they teach in schools these days isn't math. It's arithmetic. Some intro philosophy courses teach math. I'll stop before I start ranting. On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 12:04 AM, Kelly Lucas klu...@isovera.com wrote: On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 2:57 AM, Thomas Krichel kric...@openlib.org wrote: Wilhelmina Randtke writes Pretty much the whole entire entry level programming class for the average class covers using code to do things that you can do much more easily without code. Probably it was the wrong course. I think coding should start with building web pages. A calculator can't do that. Cheers, Thomas Krichelhttp://openlib.org/home/krichel http://authorprofile.org/pkr1 skype: thomaskrichel -- Kelly R. Lucas Senior Developer Isovera, Inc. klu...@isovera.com http://www.isovera.com http://drupal.org/user/271780 twitter: @bp1101 - ** The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential. They are intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager or the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to anyone or make copies. ** IronMail scanned this email for viruses, vandals and malicious content. ** **
Re: [CODE4LIB] Math or the other math?
As a math person who later studied some grad-level computer science, my personal experience was that the stuff I found easy in CS was exactly what the CS students got hung up on. So the aspects of CS involving higher math (Hi Cary!) can definitely be challenging for those who don't already have a math background; and contrariwise having that background can make grad-level CS stuff go much easier. (This statement applies more to theoretical CS, but I think trickles down a bit to coding as well.) The extent to which this applies to the more engineering-y aspects of programming isn't clear, but I feel like I called on my basic math understanding a lot when I was learning to code. Knowledge of boolean algebra and set theory was definitely helpful in learning SQL, for instance, if only to provide me with a language I was already familiar with and in which I could frame otherwise new concepts related to querying. I think if there's one thing that a genuine math background gives a coder, it's a vocabulary and a conceptual framework that they can apply to the concepts from programming to make them more familiar. The quantitative reasoning aspect is big too, of course, and that tends to come with the study of math; but I think there are other places it can be got (for instance, philosophical logic [1], rhetoric, hard engineering disciplines, the natural sciences, some of the social sciences). [1] ...which is just different enough from mathematical logic to be a bit Alice-in-Wonderlandy for us math types. On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Al Matthews amatth...@auctr.edu wrote: +1 mostly to the thread Programming seems to me -- just me here -- stratified like any other profession, in particular by access or lack of access to computer science within software dev. There are other factors. But computer science seems now heavily invested in math. -- Al Matthews Software Developer, Digital Services Unit Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library email: amatth...@auctr.edu; office: 1 404 978 2057 On 2/27/13 9:17 AM, Michael Hopwood mich...@editeur.org wrote: You mean discrete mathematics? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_mathematics I always kicked myself for not taking that course at high school (UK readers, I mean secondary school) but at least I picked up the basics during my physics MSci (a lot of physics these days is coding). Cheers, m -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Ken Irwin Sent: 27 February 2013 13:53 To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] back to minorities question, seeking guidance What both Kelly and David say is true here: David: programming needs math, not arithmetic. Kelly: computers are good at arithmetic on their own. To which I'll add: the related skill that I see as necessary here is quantitative reasoning - not the crunching of numbers but the correct assembly of the formulae, articulating the systematization of the problem. What I'm less certain of is what sort of training tend to lead to that sort of conceptual skill. Ken On Feb 27, 2013, at 8:44 AM, David Faler dfa...@tlcdelivers.com wrote: I think math is essential, but what they teach in schools these days isn't math. It's arithmetic. Some intro philosophy courses teach math. I'll stop before I start ranting. On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 12:04 AM, Kelly Lucas klu...@isovera.com wrote: On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 2:57 AM, Thomas Krichel kric...@openlib.org wrote: Wilhelmina Randtke writes Pretty much the whole entire entry level programming class for the average class covers using code to do things that you can do much more easily without code. Probably it was the wrong course. I think coding should start with building web pages. A calculator can't do that. Cheers, Thomas Krichelhttp://openlib.org/home/krichel http://authorprofile.org/pkr1 skype: thomaskrichel -- Kelly R. Lucas Senior Developer Isovera, Inc. klu...@isovera.com http://www.isovera.com http://drupal.org/user/271780 twitter: @bp1101 - ** The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential. They are intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager or the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to anyone or make copies. ** IronMail scanned this email for viruses, vandals and malicious content. ** **
