Math for programmers

Math for “programming” depends on what kind of programming you’re doing (or want to do). But the general kinds of math commonly taught as part of a CS curriculum today should include: discrete math, statistics & probability, calculus, and linear algebra. I just Google’d and found a bunch of free online courses for each math subject, so you should have no problem learning any of them.

  • Discrete math is very foundational in computer science as it covers logic, set theory, graph theory, etc. Important for not only understanding certain OS concepts but also data structures and algorithms.
  • Statistics & probability (not the same thing, and are sometimes taught as separate courses, but can also be taught in the same course) are foundational for most of the theory in computer science, especially in algorithms.
  • I can’t think of anything offhand in programming that uses calculus except for gaming. :wink: But there are lots of other applications for calculus, I just can’t think of them offhand.
  • And linear algebra is basically for programming 3D graphics, if you get into something like OpenGL or DirectX.
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