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Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

courses.csail.mit.edu

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Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#111

Post by bogomipz »

dragonwriter wrote: post #93
bogomipz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your practical comments. This particular caught my eye: >"Previously I used Epp's book [1] which in my opinion is an outstanding book but regrettably is $280.44." This is extortionate. What is the justification for a book being priced at nearly $300? This is one book of how many a student will need that semester? Are school's getting a piece of this as well? Is this why such a racket is permitted? Sorry…

> What is the justification for a book being priced at nearly $300? It's a product of a capitalist, for-profit producer. The justift for its price is that the market will bear it.

Is that a real market though when it is mandated that I must purchase one specific book?

So I don't think your "this is just how capitalism works" argument holds much credibility here.

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#112

Post by Finnucane »

jcranmer wrote: post #90
bogomipz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your practical comments. This particular caught my eye: >"Previously I used Epp's book [1] which in my opinion is an outstanding book but regrettably is $280.44." This is extortionate. What is the justification for a book being priced at nearly $300? This is one book of how many a student will need that semester? Are school's getting a piece of this as well? Is this why such a racket is permitted? Sorry…

> This is extortionate. What is the justification for a book being priced at nearly $300? This is one book of how many a student will need that semester? Are school's getting a piece of this as well? Is this why such a racket is permitted? That is a bit high for textbooks, most textbooks are usually "only" in the realm of $80-160. That said, math textbooks are usually far more expensive than others. The excuse given…

I spent a little time working at Pearson on a textbook project, and yeah, they're pretty profitable, but the up-front costs are enormous. The production budget for the biology book I worked on was $10 million. And that was for a book that would be widely used at the high-school level.

For a math book like this, I'd guess they spent more like a million getting it done. I wouldn't be surprised if it was $50-100K just for the typesetting.

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#113

Post by csense »

lucb1e wrote: post #69

This document is over 900 pages. How long are you supposed to take to read and understand all of this? And is this really all necessary? On the surface this looks like an insurmountable task with questionable benefits. Don't get me wrong, but in the past 6 years of casual and professional programming, I've needed only a basic understanding of math, the most difficult thing being collision detection in games, and that…

It seems like about two semesters' worth of material in here, so 3 hours classroom time + 7 hours homework/self-study time, for 36 weeks, would give 360 hours. 900 pages divided by 360 hours is 2.5 pages per hour, a rather reasonable rate for study (this is not as dense as an academic paper).

This covers intro to proofs, mathematical logic, number theory, graph theory, combinatorics, and probability. In a typical undergrad math curriculum, these would be five or six different courses. So if you have a two-semester course or self-study covering this 900-page textbook, it's probably more efficient than learning the material in the math department by a factor of 2.5:1 or 3:1.

Yes, stuff's been cut. This is more of a survey of these fields with the emphasis on the most important points, and informing you of the most basic parts. So if you encounter one of the more specialized problems that might have been covered in a more specialized course, you'll have hints on where to look, what to Google for, and what sort of reasoning to use.

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#114

Post by nathanyo »

pasbesoin wrote: post #42
impendia wrote: post #20

This fall I will be teaching the required "Discrete Math for CS course" to about fifty students at the University of South Carolina. Previously I used Epp's book [1] which in my opinion is an outstanding book but regrettably is $280.44. Many of our students are working minimum wage jobs to make ends meet, and I don't want to make them pay so much if I can at all help it. Lucky I saw this!! I do have one reservation t…

$280??!! I knew prices were "high", but good grief! I guess I really am out of touch. Glad I held onto my vintage copy. Don't imagine the intervening 20-ish years have added circa $200 (at a guess) of value to the latest edition.

I took a course that used that textbook last semester and I got the international edition for around $30, and it was the exact same book with less problems.

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#115

Post by feyman_r »

bogomipz wrote: post #81
impendia wrote: post #20

This fall I will be teaching the required "Discrete Math for CS course" to about fifty students at the University of South Carolina. Previously I used Epp's book [1] which in my opinion is an outstanding book but regrettably is $280.44. Many of our students are working minimum wage jobs to make ends meet, and I don't want to make them pay so much if I can at all help it. Lucky I saw this!! I do have one reservation t…

I appreciate your practical comments. This particular caught my eye: >"Previously I used Epp's book [1] which in my opinion is an outstanding book but regrettably is $280.44." This is extortionate. What is the justification for a book being priced at nearly $300? This is one book of how many a student will need that semester? Are school's getting a piece of this as well? Is this why such a racket is permitted? Sorry…

I heard an interesting take on this on the Planet Money podcast. While I still think books are over-priced here, it allowed me to think of different 'forces' that shape book prices: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/03/353300404/episo...

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#116

Post by dragonwriter »

bogomipz wrote: post #111
dragonwriter wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the justification for a book being priced at nearly $300? It's a product of a capitalist, for-profit producer. The justift for its price is that the market will bear it.

Is that a real market though when it is mandated that I must purchase one specific book? So I don't think your "this is just how capitalism works" argument holds much credibility here.

> Is that a real market though when it is mandated that I must purchase one specific book?

A real market? Absolutely. An idealized free market, no, but real markets never are.

> So I don't think your "this is just how capitalism works" argument holds much credibility here.

This is, in fact, just how capitalism works, and has always worked, in the real world.

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#117

Post by bogomipz »

dragonwriter wrote: post #116
bogomipz wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a real market though when it is mandated that I must purchase one specific book? So I don't think your "this is just how capitalism works" argument holds much credibility here.

> Is that a real market though when it is mandated that I must purchase one specific book? A real market? Absolutely. An idealized free market, no, but real markets never are. > So I don't think your "this is just how capitalism works" argument holds much credibility here. This is, in fact, just how capitalism works, and has always worked, in the real world.

>"This is, in fact, just how capitalism works, and has always worked, in the real world."

A central tenet of capitalism is a competitive market though. Where is the competition when I am mandated to buy a single book?

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#118

Post by data4science »

crphang wrote: post #76
lucb1e wrote: post #69

This document is over 900 pages. How long are you supposed to take to read and understand all of this? And is this really all necessary? On the surface this looks like an insurmountable task with questionable benefits. Don't get me wrong, but in the past 6 years of casual and professional programming, I've needed only a basic understanding of math, the most difficult thing being collision detection in games, and that…

In professional programming, most of the time, system design is most crucial and would use less of these mathematics. These 900 pages is not insurmountable. A discrete mathematics course for year 1 computer science students would have covered a good 70% of it. Such a course takes only 3 months and is 1/5 of a student's workload. The benefits of these is hardly questionable. Its use is apparent when you take a Design…

Yes, mathematics has been, is, and will be at the cutting edge of software engineering.

For historical examples: consider Turing, Knuth, and Page & Brin.

For current examples: consider High Performance Computing (HPC), Data Science, and Data Engineering.

For future examples: wait and see (or study math in the present).

Also, consider etymology: computers are machines that preform computations; software is code that directs computations and their results on computers; software engineers create code that directs computations on computers; computational scientists define the limits of computing on computers that have given properties, and create novel computational solutions to problems; mathematicians discover the theory that computational scientists (and, more generally, all scientists) utilize.

Note_0: There is a field at the cutting edge of computation, computational science, that requires the most mathematical knowledge of any discipline that includes the compute stem.

Note_1: Math goes beyond providing guarantees of equality, inequality, and equivalence: it is the quantitative basis of computer science (and all science); it provides Boolean logic; it guarantees boundaries/possibilities; and it provides scope.

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#119

Post by eximius »

Sean1708 wrote: post #96
llzes wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the type of professor everyone wishes they had. That's so phenomenal you're looking out for your students like this. That and if you end up writing supplementary material for the book.

Is it an American thing to force your students to buy textbooks? In Britain (at least at the universities that I know about) there tends to be 2 or 3 recommended texts, of which the library will have several copies, and they're meant for reference when you get stuck rather than learning the entire course.

I had a fair number of classes I simply did not attend because the material was basically taught from the book, verbatim. Class was only needed if you didn't understand the book. I showed up to turn in the homework, get assigned the next set, and for exams.

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#120

Post by digler999 »

Finnucane wrote: post #112
jcranmer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is extortionate. What is the justification for a book being priced at nearly $300? This is one book of how many a student will need that semester? Are school's getting a piece of this as well? Is this why such a racket is permitted? That is a bit high for textbooks, most textbooks are usually "only" in the realm of $80-160. That said, math textbooks are usually far more expensive than others. The excuse given…

I spent a little time working at Pearson on a textbook project, and yeah, they're pretty profitable, but the up-front costs are enormous. The production budget for the biology book I worked on was $10 million. And that was for a book that would be widely used at the high-school level. For a math book like this, I'd guess they spent more like a million getting it done. I wouldn't be surprised if it was $50-100K just f…

> The production budget for the biology book I worked on was $10 million

Most of that probably went to lobbying public school district administrators to uses Pearson's edition. you know, "greasing the wheels".

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