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What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming

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Re: What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming

#111

Post by sklogic »

ewzimm wrote: post #105
sklogic wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only possible if you take from those who work the hardest and redistribute among the lazy. Been there. Luckily, Soviet Union is gone now.

Taking the wealth produced by the hardest working people in poor countries and redistributing it to lazy rich people sounds exactly like the current state of global capitalism.

I do not care about capitalists. They somehow manage to exclude themselves from this unfair redistribution anyway, so the most of the tax burden is on the hard working middle class.

As for the people in the poor countries, they're getting richer because of this process, to an extent that the capitalists have to move their cheap labour manufacturing further and further - just see the trends in textile, for example. So it's all levelling, I would not worry about this particular aspect.

Re: What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming

#112

Post by Revex »

Delmania wrote: post #16

What the next generation really needs lessons in: - Humility - Empathy - Patience - Self restraint and control - Mindfulness/Awareness - Disappointment - Resilience - Communication - Listening - Learning - Financial independence and literacy - Critical thinking - Problem solving - Self acceptance Then we can focus on what area the person can best contribute in. Not everyone is going to suited for a job in programming…

Whoa.... Keep talking like that and you may get your self nominated to be elected. Keep on being Human bro. I love the spirit.

Re: What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming

#113

Post by nmrm2 »

S4M wrote: post #57
nmrm2 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actuarial work and accounting are both very accessible to mathematics majors; you really just need one extra course worth of content (that you can work through yourself) to be prepared for an entry level position in those fields.

For me Actuarial work falls into "Quant" work, and accounting has nothing to do with maths.

> accounting has nothing to do with maths.

Sure, but like I said, with a Mathematics degree you can self-study and get an intro-level position pretty quickly.

Otherwise, I guess you can go to grad school or become a teacher? Or, certain types of software developers get to do interesting math as well.

Re: What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming

#114

Post by oberstein »

fuzzieozzie wrote: post #39
codingdave wrote: post #8

What students need is the ability to self-teach. They need to be able to recognize when there is a gap in their knowledge, know how to find instruction in those topics, and have the motivation to follow through on actually learning it. If children gain those skills by the time they are adults, they can correct any faults in their educational paths.

Is self-teach 'newspeak' for learn? You learn by observing, researching and practicing. I guess I am getting old.

I thought self-teaching, self-taught, and similar were jargon that has been around for a long time. In the historically recent programming community especially it's all over the place: people who never did formal CS education teaching themselves how to program and are as or more effective than their Stanford peers. The difference between self-teach and learn is that the former is an attempt at learning through one's own will and direction, and the latter is merely a state of understanding the path to which can be from many directions (self-directed, teacher-directed, or just simple observation of the world around you).

Re: What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming

#115

Post by ewzimm »

sklogic wrote: post #111
ewzimm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking the wealth produced by the hardest working people in poor countries and redistributing it to lazy rich people sounds exactly like the current state of global capitalism.

I do not care about capitalists. They somehow manage to exclude themselves from this unfair redistribution anyway, so the most of the tax burden is on the hard working middle class. As for the people in the poor countries, they're getting richer because of this process, to an extent that the capitalists have to move their cheap labour manufacturing further and further - just see the trends in textile, for example. So…

There's definitely progress being made, but I'm sure we could do better. Soviet-style central control of wealth distribution is at an all-time high with banks and corporations colluding in place of a political dictatorship. I'm looking forward to new types of software-enabled currency and exchange that aren't so easy to manipulate by just a few people.

Re: What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming

#116

Post by sklogic »

paulojreis wrote: post #12

I'm going to deliberately try to be controversial, but in order to spur discussion. What the next generation needs is more soft/social sciences, not STEM. tl;dr of my point: we know dangerously more about technology than about people, their needs as individuals and their needs as a society. Somewhere along the line we should stop throwing technology at people just because we can, and start to focus on the right solut…

An extreme of a society where everyone mastered the soft skills is a society of master manipulators. Not sure it's an utopia.

Re: What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming

#117

Post by parasubvert »

davidamarquis wrote: post #77
parasubvert wrote: post #6

Why place one body of knowledge in front of the other like this? Everything has to be a competition with some people. It's always been a mistake to believe math is somehow more noble than programming. Best explanation as to why comes from the preface of SICP by Abelson and Sussmann: "Underlying our approach to this subject is our conviction that ``computer science'' is not a science and that its significance has litt…

Where did you get nobility from. This isn't the author's point at all. Obviously knowledge about different areas of knowledge can be of more practical benefit at different times. The point is that in the next few years knowledge of math will become relatively more valuable and programming relatively less valuable. Regarding the quote, it is a best a great oversimplification. Mathematicians have been interested in com…

"The point is that in the next few years knowledge of math will become relatively more valuable and programming relatively less valuable."

Sorry, that's at best an opinion, and at worst, bullshit. There little evidence of this. This article makes an assertion, provides a few anecdotes.

Re: What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming

#118

Post by sklogic »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #58
gizi wrote: post #44

According to the Curry-Howard correspondence, all mathematical proofs are actually programs. This is normal. A proof is a series of steps, and if you unambiguously describe these steps, a computer will obviously be able to execute them. Furthermore, since Alonso Church successfully proposed a Turing-complete axiomatization based on just functions (even numbers are just functions), a computer program is clearly a math…

All things that exist are mathematical objects and programs. Algorithmic information theory asserts that my cup of coffee is actually a program. While mathematics is important to computer programming, for most practical purposes it is of limited utility unless you are inventing new computer science. Knowing how to use a relational databases correctly requires no formal set theory. Understanding how to build a massive…

What are you talking about? Programming is mathematics. Using a formal language to express solutions to formally defined problems is, by definition, mathematics.

Re: What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming

#119

Post by Kluny »

XorNot wrote: post #92
wil421 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Financial Independence Do other countries teach much about personal finance in High School or even College? I think this is one area that is lacking in US curriculum, at least when I graduated high school a decade ago. Sure I could budget a project but was I able to make informed and responsible financial decisions in my early/mid 20s? Students need to know the burdens that student loans are going to put on them aft…

Except it really doesn't matter. You have a degree. Your parents probably had degrees. Your employers and co-workers have degrees. And they all expect you to have them when applying for jobs. Even the Silicon Valley startup crew tend to pivot wildly away from their "any one can make it" mentality once they start growing to "well, I want someone with a degree". Hell, my current company is hiring a nightshift person an…

So what? There is still lot of variation on how much you have to spend on that degree. Consider:

Student A:

Spends high school getting good grades and receiving an allowance from his parents.

Attends an expensive private school.

Takes out hefty loans to pay for school and the same standard of living he enjoyed with his parents.

Has little financial help from his parents who figure that the student loans cover everything.

Graduates with $70,000 in debt, unrealistic ideas about the standard of living he "needs", little understanding of how to manage his finances and plenty of fear to make him avoid the problem, and is unable to afford either that standard of living or his debt repayments.

Spirals into deep debt for many years.

Student B:

Works part time through high school and has money saved for tuition.

Takes out a small student loan to cover remaining expenses.

Continues to work weekends so has a small amount of cash flow.

Goes to a cheaper state university and gets used to the idea of living on rice and beans and keeping their clothes in milk crates.

Graduates with perhaps $10,000 in debt, a good handle on their finances, an inexpensive lifestyle, and a solid plan for paying off the debt within a few years.

Continues to wealth and prosperity.

How much poverty and bad decisions could be prevented if more students took route B instead of route A? Do you still think it doesn't matter if we teach them financial independence or not?

Re: What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming

#120

Post by marcosdumay »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #78
thewarrior wrote: post #74

Every profession has a tendency to overstate it's own importance. In the eyes of programmers , we are misunderstood , under appreciated and people don't fully grasp our worth. Management thinks that they're the real movers and shakers , having to take all the risk , make all the tough decisions , while having to deliver results while being saddled with sometimes recalcitrant and inefficient teams. Mathematicians feel…

>Management thinks that they're the real movers and shakers , having to take all the risk , make all the tough decisions , while having to deliver results while being saddled with sometimes recalcitrant and inefficient teams. It is by far easier to imagine something than it is to make that imagination real. It is by far easier to tell someone what to do then it is to do it. Management is by far easier than engineerin…

> It is by far easier to tell someone what to do then it is to do it.

Only if you don't care whether it gets done, and if it gets done well. Otherwise, it's far easier to just do it, and not rely on the known unreliable "other people".

Problem is that a big share of management in fact don't care about those things, and only manage the political game. But don't let that mislead you, actual management is hard, quite on par with engineering.

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