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A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

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Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#11

Post by jackpirate »

sz4kerto wrote: post #7
bndr wrote: post #3

I always thought that being an Engineer assumes you have knowledge of mathematics. The way this word is being used in Software ist kind of strange. "I built a blog in php, I'm a Software Engineer" - this feels kind of awkward to me.

Most of us (engineers of any kind) learn quite lot of maths during uni, and most of us forget 90% of that as it's not needed in most jobs, which is a shame. The thing I have needed all the time is statistics and prob. theory, that keeps coming up literally everywhere. Calculus - not so much. If you need something, you can always re-learn it quickly. (For example, I learned quite a lot of linear algebra, but haven't u…

As a machine learning guy, I can't imagine doing stats without calculus and linear algebra :)

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#12

Post by uncultured »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #5
uncultured wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that being an Engineer assumes you have knowledge of mathematics. Not really. Mostly just algorithms and procedures of some math concepts(Calculus and Linear Algebra) which roughly corresponds to the first year of North American math major.

Uhhh... a rigorous Computer Science program usually stops one course short of a math minor.

CompSci is not engineering. It's almost math major, heavily on the discrete side of things.

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#13

Post by uncultured »

If anyone is interested in how mathematicians think and do proofs there are many helpful books. For example,

Mathematical Proofs: A Transition to Advanced Mathematics by Chartrand and others.

How to Prove It: A Structured Approach by Velleman.

Learning to Reason: An Introduction to Logic, Sets, and Relations by Nancy Rodgers.

Elementary Discrete Math books make for great intro to proofs and math thought:

Discrete Mathematics with Applications by Epp.

Mathematics: A Discrete Introduction by Scheinerman.

There are tons of terrific introductory books on other subjects in math if anyone's interested.

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#14

Post by stared »

For information theory, a really recommend: Thomas M. Cover, Joy A. Thomas "Elements of Information Theory" - it starts elementarily, has direct examples, straightforward definitions and readable notation.

(And first recommendation by Cosma Shalizi: http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notabene/infor...)

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#15

Post by gradstudent »

uncultured wrote: post #13

If anyone is interested in how mathematicians think and do proofs there are many helpful books. For example, Mathematical Proofs: A Transition to Advanced Mathematics by Chartrand and others. How to Prove It: A Structured Approach by Velleman. Learning to Reason: An Introduction to Logic, Sets, and Relations by Nancy Rodgers. Elementary Discrete Math books make for great intro to proofs and math thought: Discrete Mat…

I can't agree more re Epp. Best discrete maths book by a country mile (and I've seen a few!).

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#16

Post by angry_octet »

uncultured wrote: post #12
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh... a rigorous Computer Science program usually stops one course short of a math minor.

CompSci is not engineering. It's almost math major, heavily on the discrete side of things.

This could not be further from the truth. I doubt my CS professors would be able to solve a PDE (or algebraic geometry etc etc). Likewise, few math professors would be able to write a parser generator (or code worth a damn).

In contrast, I know engineers who live and breathe PDEs and tweak compilers to solve them faster.

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#17

Post by jonsen »

gradstudent wrote: post #15
uncultured wrote: post #13

If anyone is interested in how mathematicians think and do proofs there are many helpful books. For example, Mathematical Proofs: A Transition to Advanced Mathematics by Chartrand and others. How to Prove It: A Structured Approach by Velleman. Learning to Reason: An Introduction to Logic, Sets, and Relations by Nancy Rodgers. Elementary Discrete Math books make for great intro to proofs and math thought: Discrete Mat…

I can't agree more re Epp. Best discrete maths book by a country mile (and I've seen a few!).

Could you tell what makes it better than Rosen's?: http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Kenn...

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#18

Post by henrik_w »

Barbara Oakley mentioned in the text teaches the course "Learning How to Learn" on Coursera [1]. It is about the science of learning in general, not just learning math, but it is very accessible. It's only 4 weeks, and the lectures are easy to understand. I knew most of the techniques before (spaced repetition, recall, proper sleep etc), but it was still good with a review.

[1] https://class.coursera.org/learning-003

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#19

Post by shangxiao »

bndr wrote: post #3

I always thought that being an Engineer assumes you have knowledge of mathematics. The way this word is being used in Software ist kind of strange. "I built a blog in php, I'm a Software Engineer" - this feels kind of awkward to me.

I obtained my degree in Software Engineering at a university where engineering grade mathematics and physics were mandatory subjects.

It really annoys me that I spent 4 years studying this to find that other people who scrape together snippets of JavaScript & PHP feel entitled to call themselves an "engineer".

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#20

Post by uncultured »

jonsen wrote: post #17
gradstudent wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't agree more re Epp. Best discrete maths book by a country mile (and I've seen a few!).

Could you tell what makes it better than Rosen's?: http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Kenn...

Epp's book is much simpler.
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