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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

#161

Post by pjmlp »

morgante wrote: post #157
pjmlp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely I would have failed fizz buzz, given that if it wasn't for HN I would have never heard of it.

> Most likely I would have failed fizz buzz, given that if it wasn't for HN I would have never heard of it. If you required prior knowledge of Fizz Buzz to solve it successfully, you should absolutely never be hired to program anything.

I develop software since 1986, never needed such dummy tests to be hired.

Companies choose employees, but employees can also chose companies which can recognize the value someone brings in, besides a few programming exercises on a sheet of paper done in 1 hour interview.

As for Fizz Buzz, never bother coding it. I see no value.

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#162

Post by mcmancini »

mcguire wrote: post #143
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.

A great many real, live engineers that I know would object to anyone calling themselves an engineer without a lot of study of the big three: statics, dynamics, and thermodynamics; not just general mathematics. It's one of the reasons I don't call myself an engineer. (But I do get to harsh on them a bit about not being professional programmers---their code isn't pretty.) The other reason, of course, is that the "softw…

Statics, dynamics, and thermo would seem to leave out EE's, wouldn't it?

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#163

Post by alanctgardner3 »

omegaoaties wrote: post #83
toolslive wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some countries it's illegal to call yourself an engineer without having an engineering degree. The degree is "protected" by the government and can only be acquired from certified organizations (like universities).

Can't stress this enough- in Canada (Ontario specifically) it is a serious fine for anyone caught using the term without being certified by a professional organization.

All provinces have a comparable professional organization, all of which are members of Engineers Canada. We have the notion of "self-regulated professions", where the government gives a charter to the professional organization to regulate use of their name, their members, etc. For Americans: it's not comparable to the IEEE, it's comparable to the College of Physicians and Surgeons (also a Canada/UK thing the US doesn't really have). So they're given the same power to penalize people "impersonating engineers" as the royal college can penalize people impersonating doctors.

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#164

Post by [deleted] »

omegaoaties wrote: post #83
toolslive wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some countries it's illegal to call yourself an engineer without having an engineering degree. The degree is "protected" by the government and can only be acquired from certified organizations (like universities).

Can't stress this enough- in Canada (Ontario specifically) it is a serious fine for anyone caught using the term without being certified by a professional organization.

[deleted]

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#165

Post by stanleee »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #89
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually go the other way around, from functional programming to mathematics: http://homepages.cwi.nl/~jve/HR/

I've seen that book a number of times before and always thought about reading it. Do you recommend it?

I think it's a great book and a great introduction to discrete mathematics, specifically the topics typically taught to CS undergrads.

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#166

Post by slavik81 »

engi_nerd wrote: post #76
vdnkh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm employed as a Software Engineer now but my degree is in ECE. The engineering curriculum at my university (Rutgers) was extremely math intensive. I didn't take a whole lot of software classes but I'm glad I did take all that math. I think it's dishonest to call yourself a Software Engineer and not have an engineering degree. Semantics, but I earned the title.

I understand where this feeling comes from. You worked hard to earn what is (or what should be) a title with prestige: engineer. I too worked hard to earn degrees in engineering. I try to live up to that title every day, and I'm sure you do, too. But my years of engineering experience have shown me that the title "Engineer" is really more about how you approach problems and what you do to solve them and less about de…

Being an engineer is about more than just technical skills, though. Engineers get it beaten into them that their first duty is to protect the public; their employer comes second. That means having the backbone to say "No" to unsafe demands, even if it costs them their job.

If he's as good, and as experienced as you say, he should be able to just do the legal/ethics stuff and get a license. Unfortunately, the professional associations are streamlined for people who take the usual path through university. At least in my jurisdiction, it is technically possible to have the experience counted, rather than the degree, but it's much harder.

The system is clearly not perfect, but when you ask the average engineer whether it's ok to do things like lie about their experience, you will get very different answers than if you asked the general public. The gatekeeper is doing a real job, even if they don't do it perfectly.

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#167

Post by randcraw »

j2kun wrote: post #116
Bjorkbat wrote: post #111

The comments are amusing. It seems there's a popular opinion that to be an engineer requires a higher understanding of mathematics than what most mere mortals require. My understanding was that to call yourself an engineer one must be capable of building robust and efficient things, whether that thing is a plane, or a bridge, complex software, even a website, matters not, so long as it is robust and efficient. The de…

> It seems there's a popular opinion that to be an engineer requires a higher understanding of mathematics than what most mere mortals require. > build an maintain an API in Go Unfortunately, a much larger proportion of engineering jobs require mathematics than you make it seem. Software engineers seem to forget that engineering includes designing planes, bridges, cars, lasers, electrical circuits, materials, and a m…

Right. And software developers usually don't realize that engineering is all about design and implementation tradeoffs that fit within quantitative tolerances that deliver a specific level of accuracy, precision, and reliability. Software 'engineering' is nowhere near mature enough to do achieve this, and all too often, unaware of it.

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#168

Post by jmgrosen »

bitL wrote: post #80

What I understood after studying CS for over 10 years at a few universities regularly ranked highly at ACM ICPC is that math is unnecessarily obfuscated to most people. There is even an excellent book "Concrete Mathematics" from Stanford that tries to bring fun back to math instead of drying people with some formal stuff without explaining how people over the centuries got to that structure. I honestly believe math l…

I tried going through "Concrete Mathematics," but I could only do a handful of the problems in the first chapter after trying for a couple weeks. I'm not sure why it seems so hard to me -- I've taken a couple "higher math" courses and am generally considered "pretty good" at math. Perhaps I'm better at bullshit than math...

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#169

Post by ctrl_freak »

IndianAstronaut wrote: post #108
bitL wrote: post #80

What I understood after studying CS for over 10 years at a few universities regularly ranked highly at ACM ICPC is that math is unnecessarily obfuscated to most people. There is even an excellent book "Concrete Mathematics" from Stanford that tries to bring fun back to math instead of drying people with some formal stuff without explaining how people over the centuries got to that structure. I honestly believe math l…

This is what drew me to CS over math. I enjoy describing things with code or pseudo code, not difficult to understand equations and math symbols. Also, it is much easier to see the practicality of an equation when presented in code form.

"Computer science" can mean many different things, but theoretical CS is largely considered a branch of mathematics. While there is some 'code', it has all of the same formalisms, equations and proofs. CS papers can be just as inaccessible as other types of math, if not more so.

Re: A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics

#170

Post by pakled_engineer »

manish_gill wrote: post #99

I've been doing project Euler problems and I realise it really really helps to know Number Theory to get to an optimal solution for problems. Can anyone recommend good books on the subject? While learning via problem-solving is fun, most of the time it boils down to me sitting with a naive, brute-force solution that's too slow and then google how to make it fast, discover a new number theory axiom/tool and then chang…

MIT OCW has plenty of number theory courses up from beginner to graduate level. Serge Lang has a good book on Number Theory as well.

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-781-theory-of-numb...

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