I found group theory useful concept for managing object relations.Solar wrote:I suck at maths (above high-school level). If it's more than simple arithmetics, I'd probably have to look it up. Didn't bother me (or my employer) the last 12 years / 3 jobs.Jezze wrote:True that you can work with computers without knowing that much math but I would argue you would be very limited in what sort of task you could undertake.
Advice on whether to stay in education or not?
Re: Advice on whether to stay in education or not?
Re: Advice on whether to stay in education or not?
Do not get me wrong - math helps big time in this profession. I just object somewhat at the conception that "you need math or you won't get anywhere". I would never tell anyone that he can slack off in maths; all I want to do is to make clear that, if you have the programming skills, don't let a bad grade in maths get between you and a carreer as programmer.
You just have to offset your lacking in other areas. Being able to write good documentation, making sense out of other people's code, handling the toolchain, writing well-structured and maintainable code. I've been in a position once or twice where a co-worker supplied the math know-how, and I did the coding / organizing (because that math dude sucked at coding).
You just have to offset your lacking in other areas. Being able to write good documentation, making sense out of other people's code, handling the toolchain, writing well-structured and maintainable code. I've been in a position once or twice where a co-worker supplied the math know-how, and I did the coding / organizing (because that math dude sucked at coding).
Every good solution is obvious once you've found it.
Re: Advice on whether to stay in education or not?
I totally agree. Maths is just one of the option to enrich your abilities. The more the merrier, but one can also benefit from any other field of knowledge.
Re: Advice on whether to stay in education or not?
Strong math education helped me many times in solving engineering (programming and electronics development) tasks. But I know very talented programmers with very poor math base. They just program the tasks where math is not required.
The one thing is definitely required to be talented mathematician or software/hardware engineer - IQ. So train it. Mathematical education trains IQ very well. But not only math.
I've been really wondered that almost none of our engineers be able to solve all tasks in Math Kangaroo competition designed for 10-years old pupils. But I definitely see strong correlation between success in solving Kangaroo tasks and their engineering strength. I love this tasks.
The one thing is definitely required to be talented mathematician or software/hardware engineer - IQ. So train it. Mathematical education trains IQ very well. But not only math.
I've been really wondered that almost none of our engineers be able to solve all tasks in Math Kangaroo competition designed for 10-years old pupils. But I definitely see strong correlation between success in solving Kangaroo tasks and their engineering strength. I love this tasks.
Re: Advice on whether to stay in education or not?
Maths Does Come Between you and your Dream Career when Maths is a requirement - An A* in Maths GCSE or a C in A-Level to get an apprenticeship With Lion Head to study Programming within Game Engines (Totally my type of work 
)
I wouldn't mind Going Uni but both of my brothers, and my Sister, said it was pointless as there aren't any jobs anymore - that I'm better off doing an apprenticeship.
Also, could I use Humbell OS as Leverage to get into Uni? not obviously to replace A-levels, but to boost up popularity on getting a placement
it's a popular course as you would imagine.
) I wouldn't mind Going Uni but both of my brothers, and my Sister, said it was pointless as there aren't any jobs anymore - that I'm better off doing an apprenticeship.
Also, could I use Humbell OS as Leverage to get into Uni? not obviously to replace A-levels, but to boost up popularity on getting a placement
it's a popular course as you would imagine.I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.
Re: Advice on whether to stay in education or not?
Guessing you're referring to the BIO? My computing teacher (who incidentally I don't much care for, neither for the course, but hey) suggested me for the one in (October?) later this year. I entered the one last year, but didn't do as well as I'd liked. Learned a thing or two about planning beforehand though, and did get the highest out of my college (and was the youngest to enter, and the only one in my year group to do so...). With any luck, I should do a bit better this yearnaf456 wrote:... apprenticeship With Lion Head to study Programming within Game Engines ...
Re: Advice on whether to stay in education or not?
I think no. Because:naf456 wrote:Also, could I use Humbell OS as Leverage to get into Uni?
- OS itself is a complex piece of software that require expert(s) to justify if it's well written. It is very likely that they underestimated the work to just run csh or busybox in your OS.
- Part of the goal of university is to prepare one ready for working in the society. However, the techniques used in OS development is so extreme that most company don't ever dream of(or need it).
The same goes for getting a job. To make it worst, head hunters are too dumb to recognize what is an OS.
Re: Advice on whether to stay in education or not?
Just going to throw my 2 cents in here. I agree with a lot of what NickJohnson said, most math that people will have contact with before or up to the first year or two of college tends to be applicable to programming only for implementing specific tasks (game engines, some equations relating to economics, physics, signal transformation, engineering, etc.) Once you get into higher level and more abstract mathematics it parallels the same problems and skill sets of programming much more closely. I also found proof writing to be very similar to programming. Generally it all seems to mesh better when you're simply looking at things as the way one set of objects interacts with another and the rules that define those interactions. I don't know that you'll be gaining a lot of new skills or insight through mathematics, but it'll give you a good framework to compare your own skills against and a different perspective.
That said if you're going to be doing anything that's massively parallel you'll probably want a strong background in mathematics, as most of the work being done there is number crunching. Even then though with the accessibility of cloud computing a lot of other applications are reaching similar scales, but are much less mathematically focused.
In general you're going to have to take a few years of mathematics you probably won't use, but the same goes for many other subjects. You probably won't need a lot of the math you learn, but you won't need a lot the science or humanities you have to learn in the first few years either. They're going to be there mainly to fulfill that idea that 'education is own reward' and to make you a better rounded person. Try to appreciate the value it has, a lot of this will give you some useful insight into the world around you even if you won't get a paycheck to apply it. If you're paying for it, you might as well approach these things with an open mind and try to do well in them. If you have a few credit hours to fill I'd recommend getting at least a basic background on micro+macroeconomics and statistics too, as you'll likely have to vote on economic concerns with plenty of statistics being waved around.
naf456:
I don't know that it's just math you should be worrying about. Without being too depressing here, the odds that you're going to change the world with your OS are very very slim and not something you should probably stake everything on. You're going to want something to fall back on, or at least to generate a stable source of income for yourself. Passion for something does not guarantee success and if you're going to enter the business world at some point being able to discipline yourself well enough to do what you have to do over what you want to do will be a necessity. No matter what you do, you'll always have to answer to someone, even if you run a company there will be investors, customers and regulators that you must answer to. Realigning your priorities to take care of some things first is not the same as giving up on your dreams, it's just minimizing the risk involved with pursuing them.
That said if you're going to be doing anything that's massively parallel you'll probably want a strong background in mathematics, as most of the work being done there is number crunching. Even then though with the accessibility of cloud computing a lot of other applications are reaching similar scales, but are much less mathematically focused.
In general you're going to have to take a few years of mathematics you probably won't use, but the same goes for many other subjects. You probably won't need a lot of the math you learn, but you won't need a lot the science or humanities you have to learn in the first few years either. They're going to be there mainly to fulfill that idea that 'education is own reward' and to make you a better rounded person. Try to appreciate the value it has, a lot of this will give you some useful insight into the world around you even if you won't get a paycheck to apply it. If you're paying for it, you might as well approach these things with an open mind and try to do well in them. If you have a few credit hours to fill I'd recommend getting at least a basic background on micro+macroeconomics and statistics too, as you'll likely have to vote on economic concerns with plenty of statistics being waved around.
naf456:
I don't know that it's just math you should be worrying about. Without being too depressing here, the odds that you're going to change the world with your OS are very very slim and not something you should probably stake everything on. You're going to want something to fall back on, or at least to generate a stable source of income for yourself. Passion for something does not guarantee success and if you're going to enter the business world at some point being able to discipline yourself well enough to do what you have to do over what you want to do will be a necessity. No matter what you do, you'll always have to answer to someone, even if you run a company there will be investors, customers and regulators that you must answer to. Realigning your priorities to take care of some things first is not the same as giving up on your dreams, it's just minimizing the risk involved with pursuing them.
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