this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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Programming

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Mathematicians and software (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 months ago by 3h5Hne7t1K@lemmy.world to c/programming@programming.dev
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It is often echoed that mathematicians make excellent software engineers, and that their logic-adjacent work will translate efficiently into coding and designing.

I have found this to be almost universally untrue. I might even say the inverse is true.

While I and many of my peers have capacity to navigate the mathematical world, it certainly is not what sets us (at least me) apart when designing clever algorithms and software tricks.

Point being: I dont think the property/trait that makes good programmers is mathematical literacy.

I would love to hear what others experience is regarding this.

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[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

In my (anecdotal) experience, software is best approached as an engineering pursuit. Almost anyone can write code, but building code that is maintainable, scalable, and reliable has a lot in common with building other things that we want to see similar features in.

There are plenty of math people who are good at this, but there are lots of other fields of study that are just as adjacent (philosophy and communication both come to mind).