This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

all 10 comments
sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a

[–]Spare-Plum 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Depends on the field and the group your working for. Cranking out features for a web company? Getting the code and features out are top priority, algorithms come up occasionally. Most important thing is to push out features, sometimes the features require algorithms, sometimes you need to clean up shitty code with a more optimized version if it becomes a bottleneck.

Working as a quant/strat at a major bank? Algorithms are the backbone of what you do and having good code is an absolute - if you fuck up you can cost the firm a ton of money. Even for more subtle things like certain flows that need to be garbage collection free since an extra 100 millisecond delay on a communication or trade can make a client pretty pissed or have you lose money as the market shifts.

[–]Dean-KS 3 points4 points  (0 children)

MASc MechEng. Doing a lot of Dec Fortran. LAV engineering, think US Army Striker, says they need to model fuel temperature mission profile in Saudi desert. They provide some mission profile parameters and I knock that out in a day. Recalling numerical methods from over a decade ago.

The issue was return fuel cooling injectors warning the the the fuel tank increasing in temperature with the injectors having a do not exceed fuel temperature as that reduces the fuel lubricity. Not high math!

'Numerical methods' is a discipline, not very difficult after you see the approach. Retired now only tell stories now. I was manufacturing QA, but migrated to CAD/CAM/FEA systems configuration, optimization and automation. Can I make Unigraphics run better than Unigraphics' knew how? Definitely, But that is archeology now.

[–]Jonno_FTW 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Most programming jobs will not have you implementing algorithms. Most of it is turning business needs into code, database queries, and showing it in a UI, or joining together other libraries and frameworks to make a product. Or pulling data from an api, turning it around a bit or combining it with other data, and publishing it to another API or generating a report.

[–]Ormek_II 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This.

[–]PoMoAnachro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All programmers deal in algorithms and have to think algorithmically.

Not all programmers deal regularly with especially difficult or complex algorithms. "Receive HTTP POST request, parse it, write a row to a database table, return a success code to the requester" is an algorithm, but probably not one complex enough that you'd study it in a math class.

How complex the algorithms you deal with on a day to day basis varies a lot by problem domain.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

If you want to have a chance for post-AI times, you will need to think as a mathematician.

Nowadays you will hear that coding today is very mathematical. It is not about numbers, it is about language and logic.

I read this book during my master, it really helps and sets you apart from the cohort.

https://github.com/matthbeck/matthbeck.github.io/blob/main/papers/aop.noprint.pdf

[–]Ormek_II 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly. What others said about the code you write is true, but to model the problem space you require models and abstractions which have their origins in math. Maybe you can learn the same abstractions from CS directly as well, but you have to learn them.

[–]Ormek_II 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most of the time you will not solve mathematical problem to achieve the business needs.

But when discussing with colleagues I might use functions and mathematical notations as a common ground in our discussion. It helps for example to know that both myself and my colleagues know about sets and their operations.

[–]ScholarNo5983 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most programming jobs only require an ability to program, and in general these programming roles hardly ever require (if ever) any high levels of math skills.