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The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

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Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#121

Post by switchbak »

QuercusMax wrote: post #59
armchairhacker wrote: post #40

Good code doesn’t just solve a problem, it solves it in a way that’s readable and modular. I think the problem-solving part of coding requires math skills, while the organization part requires writing skills. The organization part affects the problem-solving part, because if you write messy code (that you can’t reread once you forget or extend without rewriting) you’ll quickly get overwhelmed. Writing large math proo…

Most coding doesn't need much of any math past boolean logic and very basic set operations. I'm much more likely to spend my time studying DB and interface schemas to understand how something works than doing a lot of mathy fiddling. Sure, some people write game engines and such, but even much of 3D graphics doesn't need anything more complicated than the first half of a linear algebra course.

It's definitely a gray area. Is a DAG traversal algo "math", or is it more computer-sciencey? What if you do it in SQL? Certainly there's a mix of more or less concentrated logic/math vs glue code, and most of that is very dependent on the domain you're working in.

I find this distinction useful in the abstract, that one can engage different parts of the brain for different components of development. This probably explains why a well-written DSL can be so powerful in the right context.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#122

Post by reverendsteveii »

QuercusMax wrote: post #8

This totally makes sense to me. I've always been a very good / fast reader, which has been incredibly useful in my programming career. I had a good SAT math score (710) but got a perfect score (800) on the SAT verbal (in the late 90s). I remember when I first started working on my Master's project on wireless sensor networks, my advisor sat me down and said "I think I know a good project for you. I want you to print…

Also checking in as someone with strong language skills. When I was a kid in school a million years ago I was actually rather weak in math and crapped out around trig, but excelled in English, Spanish and C. Now I'm a senior web dev, and I still can't do much math beyond the basics required for everyday living (though 18 years in food service means I'm really quick at estimating percentages to within delta)

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#123

Post by deeThrow94 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #81
hbn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Recursion is also fundamentally linguistic > What does this mean exactly? What does this mean exactly?

Cute, but do you have a serious answer?

If you define recursion as a symbol referencing itself, either directly or indirectly, and if you define language as a system of relating symbols to each other, recursion is a linguistic concept, it is a concept that describes a relationship between symbols. There are good reasons to define each concept differently, but if you identify recursion empirically, recursion won't "actually" exist outside of the description of the process. It's our characterization of the process that reveals the recursive structure, even if that characterization doesn't actually exist outside of language.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#124

Post by danielmarkbruce »

godelski wrote: post #113

It think this is silly on multiple accounts. I'll claim that there's not real thing such as a "language brain" or "math brain." I'll also claim that most people don't know what math is, and that their evidence supports a "math brain". Math isn't about calculations/computations, it is about patterns. You get to algebra and think "what are these letters doing in my math" but once you get further you think "what are the…

100%. I have 2 kids and what they learn at school is absurd... I have to put them in an extra class outside school where they learn a lot of the more abstract stuff, albeit as you say at a level which makes sense (not too deep).

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#126

Post by godelski »

QuercusMax wrote: post #59
armchairhacker wrote: post #40

Good code doesn’t just solve a problem, it solves it in a way that’s readable and modular. I think the problem-solving part of coding requires math skills, while the organization part requires writing skills. The organization part affects the problem-solving part, because if you write messy code (that you can’t reread once you forget or extend without rewriting) you’ll quickly get overwhelmed. Writing large math proo…

Most coding doesn't need much of any math past boolean logic and very basic set operations. I'm much more likely to spend my time studying DB and interface schemas to understand how something works than doing a lot of mathy fiddling. Sure, some people write game engines and such, but even much of 3D graphics doesn't need anything more complicated than the first half of a linear algebra course.

  > Most coding doesn't need much of any math past boolean logic and very basic set operations
Coding IS math.

Not "coding uses math", I mean it is math.

  Mathematicians do not deal in objects, but in relations among objects; they are free to replace some object by others so long as the relations remain unchanged. Content to them is irrelevant; they are interested in form only.
  - Poincare[0]
I don't know how you code, but I don't think I'm aware of code that can't be reasonably explained as forming relationships between objects. The face we can trace a program seems to necessitate this.

[0] https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/22440/what-di...

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#127

Post by godelski »

RHSeeger wrote: post #87
ajuc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difficulty is in how many relationships you need to keep in mind, not in how hard each of them are. Just like in math. BTW relational DBs are math.

> BTW relational DBs are math. It's funny, reading the post you're replying to, I basically read it as > I don't need math, I need My teenage daughter used to complain about math, and I spent some time trying to explain to her that we use math every day... EVERY day. Now, when I see her do something that was math (even if it's not obvious it was math), I say "Math... every day". I say that a lot. Also, yes, my daught…

  > I don't need math, I need
This seems to be how it always goes. I think we've confused a lot of people by conflating math with arithmetic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43872687

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#128

Post by hinkley »

I’m old enough to have caught the tail end of CS being an offshoot of the Math department and I had a gaggle of fellow undergrads who were happy ours had been moved to the Engineering college and upset to know other students at other schools who were still in Math.

I don’t know about for learning but definitely for collaborating and mentoring. And it’s difficult to make a definition of mastery that excludes both of those, so I suppose after a fashion it’s right.

Despite being a professed lover of math, I scored higher on the verbal than the math SAT. There’s a lot of persuasive and descriptive writing in software, particularly if you’re trying to build a team that works smarter instead of finding more corners to cut.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#129

Post by deeThrow94 »

Jensson wrote: post #119
a4isms wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also unsure whether recursion is fundamentally linguistic, but I thought that “language remains the easiest demonstration of recursion in our daily lives” to be useful. If I ever write another essay about recursion, I'll now consider starting with a linguistic example before diving into recursive functions or data structures.

Language has nothing that corresponds to a recursive function, so that is a bad example. You can write a sentence that could correspond to a call to a recursive function, but its not the same thing as a recursive function. If recursion was just writing the function 10 times like you did in language then people wouldn't struggle with it.

Recursive functions are just a subset of all possibly recursive concepts. In the case of human spoken language, the recursion exists in our characterization of the grammar. You could just as easily frame this in "iterative" terms just like you can make any recursive function iterative, but that's less convenient for analysis.

So in this case, "recursive function" would be "clause" or something like that; I'm no linguist. But clauses can embed clauses which can embed further clauses, etc.

I think your usage of recursive functions is just high-level logic—you're describing an inductive proof. We also frame a lot of our social games as recursive processes. But these are conscious processes that we can evaluate consciously; the recursion in spoken language is largely unconscious and very shallow.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#130

Post by belinder »

godelski wrote: post #113

It think this is silly on multiple accounts. I'll claim that there's not real thing such as a "language brain" or "math brain." I'll also claim that most people don't know what math is, and that their evidence supports a "math brain". Math isn't about calculations/computations, it is about patterns. You get to algebra and think "what are these letters doing in my math" but once you get further you think "what are the…

Do you recommend any other resources for children to learn the basics of those theories?
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