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General Discussion

Posted by victor sagrista lopez
victor sagrista lopez
1,437 Points

Math required for coding

Hi everyone,

As many others, I am a self-taugh developer. Before deciding to try to get into this field I have barely seen any math (I saw some in high school, but it's been a long time).

So presently, I am having a hard time resolving math problems such as the euler project, for instance, which is supposed to be a great challenge for developers.

Regardless of whether or not the Euler Project is adequate for web development, I feel that my math knowledge is very weak, which makes me feel uncomfortable and unprepared for coding challenges that might come up.

Therefore, I'd greatly appreciate if someone with more experience in the issue could tell me which math concepts are essencial for coding, or at least the most important ones.

Additionally, any books or resources suggestions would be very helpful too.

Thanks a lot!

3 Answers

Bill Roberts
Bill Roberts
8,337 Points
Bill Roberts
Bill Roberts
8,337 Points

Try Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/. =

victor sagrista lopez
victor sagrista lopez
1,437 Points

Thank you!

Ken Alger
STAFF
Ken Alger
Treehouse Teacher
Ken Alger
Ken Alger
Treehouse Teacher

Victor;

I would say that it all depends on what you want to do or specialize in for programming. If you want to strictly do front-end development, basic math does come into play like percentages for CSS values and there is some math skills needed in areas but nothing too complex. However, you can certainly use programming to solve a bunch of higher level math problems if that is what you want to do, but I would guess that if you haven't been spending your days up until now thinking and mulling over Fibonacci numbers or Champernowne's constant then you probably won't need them too often in your coding skills.

Just my thoughts.

Ken

victor sagrista lopez
victor sagrista lopez
1,437 Points

Thanks Ken,

Ideally, I'd like to do both front-end and back-end and be able to develop apps. But yeah, I haven't seen Fibonacci before... Anyways, I have the energy and time to learn math, which I guess would help for becoming a better developer. I just don't really have direction - the "map" of which math to learn.

Thanks for your comment

victor sagrista lopez
victor sagrista lopez
1,437 Points

Thanks Ken,

Ideally, I'd like to do both front-end and back-end and be able to develop apps. But yeah, I haven't seen Fibonacci before... Anyways, I have the energy and time to learn math, which I guess would help for becoming a better developer. I just don't really have direction - the "map" of which math to learn.

Thanks for your comment

Matthew Batman
Matthew Batman
30,187 Points
Matthew Batman
Matthew Batman
30,187 Points

Hey Victor,

Just to give a perspective from my experience as a fellow newcomer to the field --

I'm about to enter my second year of an associates degree program at a community college for computer science. I've also been using Treehouse for about 6 months.

Traditional math seems very important in the academic field of computer science, where you may try to evaluate say, how long it would take an algorithm solve a certain problem.

In practical, basic web development, math beyond algebra seems pretty sparse. If anything, basic coding and programming seems closer to an art than a science or engineering.

If you want to brush up on your maths, I would strongly recommend Khan Academy. I used Khan Academy to reteach myself geometry, algebra, and trigonometry so I could pass calculus for my computer science program. However, in terms of practical math that you could use on the job, I guess I'd focus on algebra, statistics, and discrete math and probability.

Again, take my advice with a grain of salt. I'm not yet a professional. Good luck.

victor sagrista lopez
victor sagrista lopez
1,437 Points

Hi Matthew, thanks for the comment. Sounds like a great plan with Khan Academy. I had checked that website before but never too thoroughly. I'll try to use it to complement my lacking math. Have a good one,

Victor