The TRUTH About Math for Programming

The question of “do you need math for programming” is a particularly interesting one.

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On one hand, it is true that for 90% of a programmer’s job, you’re not going to be using any mathematics at all beyond basic arithmetic. But on the other hand, many people rightly point out that programming is simply a subset of computer science, which itself is a subset of mathematics. So how could it possibly be that math is not needed for programming?

I understand both arguments. I believe both of them are right, so in this video, I will give my best shot at reconciling them. My conclusion is that while in many applications of programming you won’t need that much math, you should still learn it.

But more important than that conclusion is how I get there. At the end, I also give my recommendation on a free resource to teach you all the math you need for computer science.

Asking “Do you need math for programming?” doesn’t really make sense as a question without some context. It all depends on what you want to create. If all you want to make is a simple website with HTML, CSS and Javascript, you won’t need to know a single thing about matrix algebra or how to find a topological sort of a finite directed acyclic graph.
So if you know for a fact that you’ll only be performing simple tasks like that in your career, there you go. You probably won’t need to know any advanced math.

But I will argue that even if that is the case, you should probably still learn some maths that is used in computer science & I will give 4 concrete reasons why.

WHO AM I?
This channel documents my life as a Self-Taught Software Engineer as well as my journey teaching myself Computer Science & Programming. When I graduated from university in July 2021, I was still completely lost as to what I really wanted to do. I always had an interest in technology, so I decided to start learning how to code with zero experience, and it quickly became my passion. After just 4 months of learning programming on my own, I had a job offer, and I will begin my career as a software engineer in September 2022.

DISCLAIMER: some of the links in the description may be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service using the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. This is no extra charge to you! Thanks for supporting Internet Made Coder :)

CHAPTERS:
0:00 The Answer
1:00 Why You should learn math
3:10 Reason 1
4:25 Reason 2
5:35 Reason 3
6:37 Reason 4
7:57 Don't be scared..
9:05 Resources

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[ciousli]

As a software engineer with a solid math background who has worked with all sorts of people over the last 15 years, I'm conflicted about the opinion "good at math => good at programming". I mean, like everything, it really depends on what you work on, but in general, based on what a dev spends most of his time on every day, the most important skills to have is imagination, creativity and intuition. I'd go as far as to say, given two similarly intelligent people with the same amount of exposure to software development, where one has a background as a jazz musician and the other is a mathematician, the jazz musician will likely outperform the mathematician when it comes to daily work and designing/maintaining large systems. Don't get me wrong, it absolutely benefits you to learn how to write proofs and approach problem solving in a very organized and rigorous manner, but to become "the best" engineering, you need to be a daydreamer in addition to being a solid critical thinker. It isn't a coincidence that we call it "designing" a system rather than "modelling" for the most part. The best developers I've worked with were the types who talked about having "hunches" and "feelings", the type that never thought their system is finished or complete, always anticipating change. A good engineer needs a healthy amount of stupidity, just enough to keep them working on problems that seemingly have already been solved, reinventing and reimagining the most trivial and basic things, until they find what only they can see.

[isirlasplace]

I love your reason number 1!!! I always hated math growing up. But after a while of trying to figure out where to start and what courses to take and dipping my toes into learning how to code, (I hadn't discovered your channel yet), I realized that becoming good in math would help tremendously to develop those logic muscles I'd need to become good at coding. So I took computer science math programs until I started getting it. And now I actually wish some of life's problems could be solved as well as math problems 😂

[Atistatic]

Computer and math is two side of the same coin. Actually 50 or 60 years ago Computing was a branch of Applied mathematics. If you dig book like "The art of computer programming" from Knuth is purely math. The actually question you should do is ... How much math do i need for what i want to programming. That's simply different question.

[levynkhs]

Math separates you between a good programmer and an average one.
It also helps a lot in AI such as Neural network, Poisson distribution ect.... to make a task easier when you use or create a formulae

[monamona-pmjz]

Hi, I'm Japanese. Your video is useful, though I'm not good at English..

I think that to be a good programmer, it is better to learn mathematics.

The biggest reason, and please don't get mad at me for saying this, is that programming is a part of mathematics.

The ethics and aesthetics in the art of programming are, in fact, in the spirit, directly inherited from the ethics and aesthetics in mathematics.

[LeChuck.x]

Mathematics is useful in many branches of programming, but particularly important in:

- Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
- Computer Graphics and Game Development
- Cryptography and Security
- Data Science and Analysis
- Financial Technology (FinTech) and Quantitative Analysis
- Scientific Computing and Simulation

In these fields, knowledge of mathematics such as linear algebra, calculus, statistics, and discrete mathematics can be particularly valuable. However, it's worth noting that while math is often helpful, it's not always required to be successful in these fields.

[kandekore]

Love this video! Embrace the difficulty, it will pay off in the end.

[Calg]

I've programmed professionally for 10 years. I've earned in some years literally almost 10x the average salary in the UK (Contracting + Overemployed). Granted, the government took more than half of it but still. My maths knowledge was mid gcse tier, so you definitely don't need maths. I want to learn it now though.

[Jjydvfgcmsr]

This is one of my main roadblocks everytime I try to start learning programming again. I'm trying to wrap my head around the code and syntax and what everything does and then I always end up having to do these math exercises that I'm just not good at, my brain enters panic mode and the confusion over the code entangles with my terrible fear of math and I just end up quitting again :(

[sachinvinith]

Your video editing skills are impressive, I don't know if you are experienced or just starting out but keep it up

[DevlogBill]

I understand your conceptualization and I agree to an extent. But I disagree. I love math and your correct math is crucial and eventually one should learn math because math is formulative thinking in comparison to programming. But it's more important to learn what's needed versus learning just to learn. In programming there is so much to learn and adding something which yes can improve your problem-solving skills for programming but is it essential at that very moment?
Depending on the persons journey, maybe it's more essential to focus on creating projects versus learning mathematics. I would think this scope of thought should be addressed with more clarity. I would think learning math would be more valuable to someone who is past the novice stage of programming where they have a firm grasp of programming. I can see the benefits of learning math for someone who is comfortable with programming and is able to sharpen their skills of programming by learning math concepts, but not before. This is just my opinion and there is no ideal way to go about this, but the question should be when you should as person include math in their learning as as developer versus you need to learn math. Excellent video's as usual and very informative, thank you for your content.

[stanislausbohmearteaga]

YEEEESS!!! I'm a person that loves mathematics and some weeks ago I thought that math was useless for me because being a traditional engineer wasn't calling me that much until I knew what programing was about

[NightmareRY]

honestly, when I was younger one of my hardest barriers against learning programming was the sheer amout of math that was showed down my troath, I had a hard time learning math because in various times trough my school years I feel behind in some aspects and learning math without going step for step is like going up the stairs triying to jumpo 10 steps.

Now my current barrier is learning that there are so many different disciplines of coding and I don't know witch one do I pic...

[FredSkullsmash]

As a kid it took me a long time to accept that I wasn't bad at math. I was bad at hand writing (I'm dysgraphic) then as I got older and I made accommodations to help I started to do okay at math. So I went further down that rabbit hole as I got older and I learned that college math is basically just memorizing formulas and using them on tests. So was I bad at math or was I bad at memorizing a bunch of formulas I may or may not ever use again? What I've learned about myself is I am good at problem solving. I don't excel at math in the way that we teach it in this country. (USA). I don't even think of math as math in this country. Maybe at the very advanced levels? But here we mostly just memorize formulas and use the formulas we are forced to memorize to solve problems. This doesn't relate to computer programming at all. Do you memorize functions and build in methods? Sure.. but more of then then not you are going to look them up on google or tech doc. You aren't going to memorize them. So that's the difference as far as I can tell.

[Abhi_]

You are covering all important topics for us👍 thanks for this one

[jattane]

I'm just a beginner in the programming world and your videos are of great aid

[socraticproblem]

I’ve been practicing math over the summer. My goal is to break into technology. It sharpens my saw. I’ve learned to enjoy solving problems. As a beginner in coding I’ve wondered about the relation to math.

[athens]

I have a Math PhD and work as a software developer in AI. I notice that those who are feel insecure about their math background will always insist that math knowledge has no place in software development. But those of us who are secure in our math backgrounds and work in software development readily acknowledge that we use our math muscles daily. So this itself is a logic puzzle of sorts -- who do you listen to? Those with training who use their training regularly, or those who are afraid to train and insist its' not necessary? I know that if this was an athletic gym, I know who I would listen to!

[nathanlloyd]

Math and programming are both based on problem solving

[ТогрулГулиев-уй]

Also it is important to say that learning math concepts without solving problems where you use it, is just waist of time. The only time that your brain improves, is when you struggle to solve the problem. NO PAIN NO GAIN!