> I would like to know what kind of mathematics are important > to know for a programmer or computer scientist. My education > was in linguistics and experimental psychology, so I did not > take a lot of math courses. I have been working as a > programmer for seven years and never felt the lack of math > education was an obstacle, and I believe that understanding > languages and logic are more relevant to the kinds of > programming which are not quantitative.
There are lots of things you need to understand about number representations. Understanding sets and the idea of limits are also useful. Of course the whole notion of an algorithm is from maths too. And of course logic is maths as is the use of notations. Some of the notations of linguistics are very close to those of mathematics. > Computers were originally developed by > mathematicians, of course (which explains why they're called > computers), but as far as I know it was the psychologists > Simon and Newell who first thought of using them for > non-quantitative information processing. Umm, not true at all - a lot of the Colossus stuff could be described as non-quantative processing, even though its basis was largely mathematical. > A large amount of > programming now days involves information processing and is > logical not quantitative. But logic is part of Maths! Most information processing has to do with creating sets and asking questions about them - all driven by mathematics. The fact that you seem to be able to do these things suggests that you have done sufficient maths to have the right knowledge, even if you are not aware of it! L. - Automatic footer for [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] unsubscribe discuss To join the announcements list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe announce To receive a help file, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] help This list is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ If you have any problems or questions, please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
