Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

courses.csail.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 161 posts

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#151

Post by jimhefferon »

mattmanser wrote: post #61
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…

Honest question, why would you spend weeks doing proof by induction? Looking it up, I think I did that when I was 16, but I've never used it while programming. I can't see a single benefit to knowing it for programming. Been programming professionally for 12 years now. What am I missing? Why do you think it's important?

You need it for a follow-on course, Theory of Computation.

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#152

Post by gech »

impendia wrote: post #134
Finnucane wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You've gotten me extremely curious. How did they manage to spend $10 million?

Transparency from business, transparency from govt, is a future we can aim for

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#154

Post by snmartin »

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…

This is, in fact, a textbook for a discrete mathematics course for year 1 computer science students :)

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#155

Post by Jemmeh »

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.

Yes, in USA you generally have to buy the book. In fact, because our teachers tend to get paid so little here, sometimes they will write a book, and then require the students buy that book to learn out of for the class. While this kind of sucks, I also understand them doing it because they get paid so poorly. The one thing I really hated though were the times we were required to buy a book and then barely used it. Which was often.

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#156

Post by voycey »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #58
voycey wrote: post #36

I failed so hard at this in my CS degree :(

Yeah. I had what was termed a "tolerated fail" on what I think was the equivalent on my (UK) course - "Foundations of Computer Science". Tolerated as in because I scored high in all other modules I didn't have to resit, fortunately, as I'm not convinced I'd have passed. I'm not convinced either that it's negatively affected my career. I do occasionally wonder if it was just not taught in a way I could get, whether I…

Yeah I had the same, I have been developing now at various levels for 15 years since university and I can honestly say I have never once come across anything that has needed it! Then again I would say seeing as I am primarily web based it's not likely I would vs someone coding realtime systems

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#157

Post by Finnucane »

tzs wrote: post #133
Finnucane wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is something more than just high production costs going on, though, for math books. Consider Apostol's "Calculus". Volume I new is $150-270 on Amazon. Volume II new is $160-270. These were first published around 1961. A second edition of Volume I was published in 1967, and a second edition of Volume II in 1969. There have been no further editions. The schools that use Apostol today are still using those late '6…

A book that cost $20 in 1977 and was made to the same standards today--some paper and binding quality, etc.--would probably have to cost at least $100 today retail. Unfortunately, costs for paper and printing have outpaced inflation generally. Most trade books now are printed very cheaply--the paper and binding are crap.

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#159

Post by GoodbyeEarl »

From a person with only pre-high school math knowledge, what books/pdfs/moocs would you guys recommend in order to prepare for a future computer science degree? I've read that I would need linear algebra, discrete mathematics and calculus. Is that right? Is there any resource that targets compsci subjects?

Re: Mathematics for Computer Science [pdf]

#160

Post by oerpli »

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…

I just skimmed the whole book and the content were about 70% of what we did in Discrete Mathematics in one term.

A term has ~15 weeks with 4 hours per week.

The exercises are not included in this - so I think 100-150 hours should suffice.

Post reply on HN