[Discuss] OT: Do CS grads need calculus?

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

On Tue, Apr 07, 2015 at 01:05:43PM -0400, Bill Ricker wrote:
>    If you're programming Video Games, real Physics is VERY useful, and
> knowing enough Calculus to make good approximations too.
>    If you're in the guts of a graphics rendering engine, Trig (and
> approximations) wins big.
>    If you're straddling EE and CS, you need at least a little Calc to do
> the electronics.
>    But that's not every programmer.   

At age 22, when most people earn their bachelor degree, do you have
any idea what kind of programmer you ultimately will become?  I sure
as hell didn't imagine I'd be doing what I'm doing today, and I
graduated later than most...

The more you know, the more opportunities you will have.  Learning
calc exposes your brain to a way of thinking you likely hadn't seen
before that.  It expands your mind and makes thinking about certain
classes of problems easier/more familiar.  Arguing against it suggests
to me narrow-mindedness and/or laziness.  I don't use calc in my
day-to-day work but I have used it on a few occasions to simplify
certain problems.  That wouldn't have been possible for me had I not
studied it.  Admittedly, if I needed to use it now I would fail--it's
been way too long.  Or at least, I would need a refresher.

> We should be changing the core math curriculum for HS & College (for
> non-Physics/Engineering majors) to make better citizens: Probability,
> Statistics, & Risk Management; Discrete Math.   Those are more useful to
> Applied Computer Science students than Calculus too.

My high school offered all of those; but there's only so much math you
can fit into a high school education.  I ended up having all of those
in college, and I dare say that my "classical" mathematic education in
HS served me better, at that particular period of time.  YMMV.  In my
experience, most people who weren't bound for some form of sciences in
college took basic math in HS... and all too often did poorly at even
that.  Prob & stats was a niche course taken mostly by people who
*liked math* and were bound for college but not for science.  A rare
few indeed.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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