How important is math in coding?

1

I am assuming that math is important in computer programming and it may be helpful for me to go back and review some college algebra?

Am I right?

Has it been useful in the field?

2

Reviewing couldn’t hurt, right?

It really depends what exactly you’re intending to work on, but I know some programmers use maths much more than others.

3

It depends on what you are doing. For web development, not much math is needed. Really, a reasonably smart 12 year old has enough math for most jobs.

There are other jobs in programming that may require more, depending on what you are doing. If you are into data science, you will need to know a lot of statistics. There may be jobs where you need to know a lot of calculus, set theory, trigonometry, etc - depending on the field you are programming for. But if you don’t know those, you steer away from those.

If you get a degree, you might need to take some advanced math for the degree.

Really, I’d say you need:

  • basic math theory: What is a prime? A square? A square root? Factoring? Lowest common denominator? Factorial? Etc.
  • very basic algebra
  • very basic geometry
  • a little basic trig couldn’t hurt
  • a little basic statistics/probability couldn’t hurt
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4

Every algorithm/software prototype that programmers create on a daily basis have math as their core and their foundation.

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5

I think if you went through it already there’s no need to. I mean, when you need math you can easily go back and look up that specific topic.

My project with focus on data visualization did need trigonometry for calculating a pie-meter. I looked it up online and solve the issue in a few minutes. There were some coding challenges that need math but then again you can just look it up somewhere.

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6

Yes. Google is great. It is easier to just look things up especially if you have studied it before. Usually a small reminder will jog a memory. Though it may not be so straightforward for people who haven’t studied said required math before.

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