Math Is Necessary for Software Development

Math Is Not Necessary for Software Development

Why are computer science and mathematics always combined? In my day-to-day as a developer I rarely do what I would call math. Now admittedly, computer science is different than software development, but I don’t think laypeople know that. I don’t think that high school kids who are deciding what do do with their lives know that. Our industry desperately needs more talented developers - and it turns out that the skills that make a good mathematician don’t necessarily line up with the skills that make a good software developer.

Math is always a tricky question. On a daily basis you might not directly use higher math, but everything you touch is built upon it. So math is actually super important, and you should know and understand the basic concepts. In the long run you cannot live without knowing how the low level stuff works. You can get by, but if you want to be a great (not a good) developer, then you must understand the building blocks that you are using. You cannot choose the appropriate hash function if you do not know what that is.

Math is everywhere in software development. Denying it would be completely foolish. You can try to shield yourself from it, but eventually you will have to sit down and understand how things really work. It doesn’t matter if you do this at a university or on your own, but you cannot avoid it.