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Can a simple algebra test predict programming aptitude?

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Re: Can a simple algebra test predict programming aptitude?

#131

Post by slashnull »

WoodenChair wrote: post #92
slashnull wrote: post #22

"Programming"? What kind of "programming"? What "ability"? Ability to write space-O(my_god * n) sorting algorithms? Ability to duct-tape queries to an ill-documented SOAP webservice and upsert the return into a Your-Boss-Normal-Form database schema? Ability to brutally optimize the runtime of a really hairy numerical analysis algorithm? Ability to design a centralized data pipeline architecture and lead 12 hackers du…

This is one of the most epic rants I've read on HN in quite a while. Thank you for the comedy, but it's unclear how anything beyond the first couple of paragraphs relates to the discussion here. You're saying that our education system produces ill-prepared CS graduates right? What does that have to do with the correlation between an algebra test and programming aptitude?

1) it was a rant that I needed to make

2) what the exact fuck is "programming aptitude" anyways? The article defines it as "having good grades in a CS program". Which is part of why I needed to rant against CS education.

Re: Can a simple algebra test predict programming aptitude?

#132

Post by fredophile »

mgirdley wrote: post #14
Paul_S wrote: post #11

Does a "simple algebra test" correlate with IQ? Does "programming aptitude" (whatever the hell that is meant to be) correlate with IQ? The headline would then follow. I know this is a socially unacceptable opinion but I think those correlations exist.

Codeup CEO here. We actually did some brief testing with classical IQ tests and saw two problems: 1) IQ tests are really long and expensive, so difficult to implement 2) They didn't correlate with performance as well as algebra.

I remember reading about a similar but different test that had good results. I can't find the source so this is just from what I remember. Before starting a course the students were shown short snippets of code and asked simple questions about it. They found that consistent answers were a predictor of who would do well. The theory was that people who are able to construct a mental model for the problems ended up being good at programming tasks, even if the models they had made didn't match what code actually does. Have you heard of or tried this approach?

Re: Can a simple algebra test predict programming aptitude?

#133

Post by jacalata »

Dewie wrote: post #114
throw_away wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of top schools use scheme (via SICP). Cal, Stanford and MIT all do (or at least did when I was an undergrad).

Dude you went to MIT? That's rad. EDIT: why downvote someone for complimenting them on their top schooling?

Because it is noise (do you really think that either the poster or the rest of HN need to hear that you are impressed by MIT?), and also because it isn't even stated that he did go to MIT.

Re: Can a simple algebra test predict programming aptitude?

#134

Post by kyllo »

Morgawr wrote: post #113
guard-of-terra wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recursion is as hard as mutable state to grasp if not harder. We might find a few people who can do one thing sligtly better than the other one, but not complete blanks.

The whole point of what I said is that "hard" is a difficult thing to judge. For some tasks and some languages recursion is much easier to understand, teach and use. Just take the good ol' classical example of quicksort in Haskell or fibonacci in Lisp. Some people can grok recursion in a functional programming language much faster and more easily than they would understand the concept of branching, variable assignmen…

Just take the good ol' classical example of quicksort in Haskell or fibonacci in Lisp.

Hell, recursive quicksort and mergesort are easier to teach and remember than the iterative versions even in C and Java. They're divide-and-conquer algorithms, which makes them a natural fit for a recursive solution.

Re: Can a simple algebra test predict programming aptitude?

#135

Post by jacalata »

bitplanets wrote: post #75

Why do you care about it in the first place? Also what is your definition of good programmer? Just make a function? Make a class? Make a big app? IMO you don't need to learn too much math before programming to be a good programmer. Basic operations are good enough, if you need more you learn as you go, you'll never know what you need. Lazy learning, like lazy variable loading. The test you are making are more like pr…

>why do you care about it in the first place? Also what is your definition of good programmer?

Is this a joke? They care because they are selecting applicants to a programming boot camp and want to select the ones more likely to be successful. I suppose they could make all of the applicants learn to program and select the best ones, but there could be issues with that. And they are pretty clear that they are defining 'good programmer' as 'good outcome in their course'.

> A better test would be...

Prove it.

Re: Can a simple algebra test predict programming aptitude?

#136

Post by rebootthesystem »

mytochar wrote: post #128
rebootthesystem wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 35 years of programming across platforms and languages covering embedded to web applications it is my opinion that recursion is dangerous and useless. There is no way I would use recursion to evaluate how good a programmer might be. To quote the movie: "Frankly dear, I don't give a damn".

Why?

Just so I can answer, why what?

Re: Can a simple algebra test predict programming aptitude?

#137

Post by rebootthesystem »

mytochar wrote: post #128
rebootthesystem wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 35 years of programming across platforms and languages covering embedded to web applications it is my opinion that recursion is dangerous and useless. There is no way I would use recursion to evaluate how good a programmer might be. To quote the movie: "Frankly dear, I don't give a damn".

Why?

Just in case this is what you were trying to understand:

https://www.google.com/search?q=recursion+is+dangerous&rlz=1...

http://m.slashdot.org/story/198499

You can certainly dig up more information. For me, and this is just my opinion based on 35 years of software and hardware engineering, recursion is a neat academic idea but in the real world it is useless and dangerous.

Re: Can a simple algebra test predict programming aptitude?

#139

Post by yen223 »

xeromal wrote: post #106
kasey_junk wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely what I thought as soon as I read the study, simply because I was terrible at math generally (and algebra specifically) before I studied CS. Afterwords, it turns out I'm fine at math generally (and have a bit of ability for algebra). The problem I had was not the content matter but the teaching paradigm. A much more interesting experiment would be to add the algebra test back into the end of the program and…

I was in the exact same boat. I was "shit" at math, but my love for tech pushed me to CS. I barely passed the req maths such as the calcs and descreet math, but I did exceedingly well at the cs classes. I even did okay in the algo classes just because I was driven. The longer I'm in the industry though, the easier math becomes. I've been teaching myself algebra and calc on the side and things come a lot easier. Maybe…

The way I see it, you became good at math the same way a musician gets to Carnegie Hall - practice, practice, practice.

For some reason - possibly due to the disproportionately young age of mathematicians - there's a prevailing idea that math is an innate talent, something which you are either born with, or you aren't. I strongly disagree with that notion - putting in that 10,000 hours can improve one's mathematical abilities.

Re: Can a simple algebra test predict programming aptitude?

#140

Post by hackinthebochs »

kasey_junk wrote: post #102
hackinthebochs wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also agree that spatial reasoning is key to strong programming ability. Most data structures are best understood through spatial reasoning, for example. But I would also say that spatial reasoning is key to mathematical ability. I'm actually surprised that you would consider yourself strong with spatial reasoning but had trouble with calculus. Perhaps you just had a bad teacher or lacked proper motivation?

I'm terrible at spatial reasoning but have no problem with formal logic. I'd also like to think I have strong programming ability (of course we don't know how to measure that). Spatial reasoning is a key mathematical ability for certain classes of problems (a big chunk of calculus as you mention) but helps not at all with another big class of mathematics (set theory for instance). Finally, to you data structures are…

I'm sure my bias plays a role, but I would disagree that there's nothing spatial about data structures. Linked lists, trees, heaps, etc, all have the characteristic property of a geometric interpretation: a natural notion of "distance" inherent in their definitions.
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