My theoretical knowledge of computer science can be approximated to zero, as is my knowledge of math, but for some time I worked as a programmer with good results; in my best days I could write about two hundred lines of C or Pascal in a few hours, then go home without testing them because the machine wasn't available and be complimented the following day because they compiled and worked without any errors. I still felt I was lacking something so I tried to improve reading some books but all of them required high math skills I never had, so I quickly gave up. (Niklaus Wirth algorithms book probably is the only exception here)
I can perfectly figure in my head registers loading data and shifting them around, logic gates changing and combining values, stacks pushing and popping words, electrons flowing through components etc, and for example can diagnose problems in analog circuits due to say bad decoupling, ground loops etc. Figuring them is easy from experience but the math behind that is way harder; anything beyond simple equations is like alien language to me, and the very few times I grasped something beyond that I quickly forgot for lack of continuous exercise. Did anyone else encounter the same discouraging level of difficulty?
So my question would rather be: are there any good algorithms book for nearly complete math illiterates like me that would help to learn both in the process (and possibly not hate them :)?
Teach Yourself Computer Science
31–40 of 85 posts
Re: Teach Yourself Computer Science
#32My theoretical knowledge of computer science can be approximated to zero, as is my knowledge of math, but for some time I worked as a programmer with good results; in my best days I could write about two hundred lines of C or Pascal in a few hours, then go home without testing them because the machine wasn't available and be complimented the following day because they compiled and worked without any errors. I still f…
Algorithms ( sorting, for instance) don't require knowledge of advanced math. Analysing the computational cost requires some math or math like thinking.
Advanced math is linked with computing mostly because the roots of computing lie in mathematical logic.
So you can become a master programmer without advanced math knowledge.
In short, most algorithms 101 books should be accessible to someone who considers themselves math illiterate.
Re: Teach Yourself Computer Science
#33I have many degrees in computer science, and have used almost none of the knowledge in programming jobs. So, the content is fairly useless, practically speaking. I've also found the more I focus on theoretical elements while at work, the more useless I become. The actually useful elements are big picture, and can probably be taught in one or two classes. Much more useful than technical knowledge are the abilities to…
> I have many degrees in computer science If you have many I'm going to assume that's at least three. Surely that's a PhD then? Otherwise you've been standing still doing multiple bachelors or masters degrees, which wouldn't make any sense. If you've done a PhD and then go into a field which didn't need that research, then that's unusual. Why did you bother with the PhD?
I don't think it is that unusual for grad students to research a try during PhD, decide it is not for them, and then move onto other things afterwards. This is from a physics grad school perspective though.
Re: Teach Yourself Computer Science
#34My theoretical knowledge of computer science can be approximated to zero, as is my knowledge of math, but for some time I worked as a programmer with good results; in my best days I could write about two hundred lines of C or Pascal in a few hours, then go home without testing them because the machine wasn't available and be complimented the following day because they compiled and worked without any errors. I still f…
I overcame my math illiteracy by reading How To Prove It. The book is so simple and narrow in scope and yet it gave me a feeling that ultimately no math is beyond my grasp, even the papers on arxiv. Now I would say my math skills are still rather low because I know how much is out there, but at least I am competent. At this point I wouldn't want to read books that avoid math for mathematical topics. Algorithms are mathematical, so it's silly to seek books for math illiterate. It's like looking to copypaste a large chunk of code without reading and understanding it while caring about code quality of your system, it just doesn't make sense. It is not a good decision.
Re: Teach Yourself Computer Science
#35I have many degrees in computer science, and have used almost none of the knowledge in programming jobs. So, the content is fairly useless, practically speaking. I've also found the more I focus on theoretical elements while at work, the more useless I become. The actually useful elements are big picture, and can probably be taught in one or two classes. Much more useful than technical knowledge are the abilities to…
I don't concur. A few examples: I was working on a iOS App that connects to a GraphQL API. All GraphQL are POSTs. POSTs aren't cacheable. I had to implement a client-side cache. Implementing a cache, understanding the pros/cons of an implementation, is an exercise in CS. I was implementing an animation. I drew the animation out on graph paper and worked out the transformations using stuff I learned in my linear algeb…
They’re called heuristics, and everybody would be paralyzed without them. Good enough for Facebook? Probably will work for my use case, and now I can focus on things that actually add value to my application.
Re: Teach Yourself Computer Science
#36I have many degrees in computer science, and have used almost none of the knowledge in programming jobs. So, the content is fairly useless, practically speaking. I've also found the more I focus on theoretical elements while at work, the more useless I become. The actually useful elements are big picture, and can probably be taught in one or two classes. Much more useful than technical knowledge are the abilities to…
I used what I learned in my linear programming class (i.e. optimizations of a linear function under a system of linear constraints) not too long ago to solve a problem involving multiple non-trivial constraints.
Also, CS is different from programming, just like Math is different from bulding a house.
Re: Teach Yourself Computer Science
#37I have many degrees in computer science, and have used almost none of the knowledge in programming jobs. So, the content is fairly useless, practically speaking. I've also found the more I focus on theoretical elements while at work, the more useless I become. The actually useful elements are big picture, and can probably be taught in one or two classes. Much more useful than technical knowledge are the abilities to…
"I know sorting algorithms so intimately that I know to always reach for the built in .sort()" - hypothetical person in my head.
"I know sorting algorithms so intimately that I know to not reach for the built in .sort() when the array is already 99% sorted"
Built-ins are made to work well on the most common case. Often, you can use domain knowledge to come up with better solutions. But you need to know how common sorting algorithms work to understand if and when that domain knowledge can be used to speed up your program.
Re: Teach Yourself Computer Science
#38I have many degrees in computer science, and have used almost none of the knowledge in programming jobs. So, the content is fairly useless, practically speaking. I've also found the more I focus on theoretical elements while at work, the more useless I become. The actually useful elements are big picture, and can probably be taught in one or two classes. Much more useful than technical knowledge are the abilities to…
Anyone else concur with yters experience ?
I concur, with the caveat that whether you need to have a formal education in computer science depends on the types of problems you are trying to solve and the types of systems you're trying to build and maintain.
Re: Teach Yourself Computer Science
#39I have many degrees in computer science, and have used almost none of the knowledge in programming jobs. So, the content is fairly useless, practically speaking. I've also found the more I focus on theoretical elements while at work, the more useless I become. The actually useful elements are big picture, and can probably be taught in one or two classes. Much more useful than technical knowledge are the abilities to…
I read this a lot. I am currently studying CS and I kind of regret it for that reason. Sure, the topics tend to be very interesting and I gained some real insights from some classes, such as OS, but I probably won't ever use this stuff when I start working. I kind of wish I did EE/ME or Math instead, especially because I actually quite enjoyed my math classes.
Re: Teach Yourself Computer Science
#40I don’t really like the recommendation for SICP. The book expects a certain level of mathematical maturity from the reader and I think this level is significantly greater than the level that might be expected from the targets of this website. Mathematical maturity in this case can be broken into two parts:
1. Understanding what a proof is, what is required to prove some proposition, how to figure out and write a proof, how to cope with struggling to prove something, and how to carefully read definitions.
2. Just knowing what “basic” things are. In the case of SICP these include calculus in one variable, lots of elementary algebra, an understanding of polynomials and exponentials, vectors and linear transformations (roughly the level of geometry required for basic classical mechanics (c.f. SICM although this is a slightly more advanced way of doing mechanics))
It is easy to see this requirement by looking at the exercises from the book. They start with calculus themed exercises (e.g. Newton’s method), move on towards more algebra flavoured problems and then vectors/geometry. Later exercises are not on mathematics but require one to apply a reasonable amount of mathematical sophistication to get the answer. Throughout are exercises which rely on the reader carefully applying their careful reading of carefully written definitions for things like models of evaluation.
I have another issue which is with the following:
CS is basically a runaway branch of applied math, so learning math will give you a competitive advantage.
I basically disagree with this entirely. I would say that computer science is basically a branch of pure mathematics with applications to engineering practice with real-life computers. I’m not sure I would describe it as runaway but some branches of computer science (eg operating systems) are, I think, not really branches of mathematics.