Mathematics required for Programming/ Software Development

 

This is the most frequently asked query by students that do I need to be good at math in order to be a software developer and I really want to break down what skills of math you need to know in order to be a software developer or a programmer and what skills you don't need to have as far as math. Okay let's get started how much math do I actually need to know in order to become a programmer do I need to be good at math to become a programmer these are some of the most common questions I've been getting asked recently and I think it's because it's this perception that in order to be a programmer you have to be really good at math and I'm gonna give you the quick and short answer right now. The answer is “NO” you do not need to be a math expert you do not need to be a pro in math in order to become a programmer. 

Math and programming have for a long time now have this misunderstood relationship where a lot of people think in order to be a good programmer you need to be really good at math. Well  in fact that is not the case at all for general programming you should know addition, subtraction, multiplication, division all the basics that we learn and probably hopefully stick with us forever. 

It doesn't need to be advanced chemistry or calculus or anything that in order to become a software developer but  if you are going to apply for a computer science degree a significant amount of math is required and that is because computer science degrees will really set you up to kind of navigate to whatever specialization you like and there are some areas of programming that will require more math hence why it's required in order to get a CS degree the one part of math or that relates to math is really essential.

 

When you are learning programming or thinking about getting a software development career all you need is  logical reasoning there are a few areas of programming that you will need to know really advanced mathematics but I would say 95% of areas of programming you don't need to be a math expert by any means the other 5% area is that you would need to be an advanced or heavier advanced mathematics. Again it matters which field you are focusing more. Lets understand this in bit more depth:-

 1.If you are focusing your career in Web Development all you need to know about Html, CSS and JavaScript and JavaScript is not that tough and you need  to know basic mathematics like addition, subtraction and multiplication and little bit of algebra sometimes but you need to worry about that because it is not that much. So, if you are focusing more about Web Development but you are afraid of mathematics trust me  you can go on next level in Web Development.

 2. If you are more interested in Machine learning , Data science and Artificial intelligence you need to be good in  Calculus, Statistics, Probability, Multivariate calculus, Optimization and few other topics because you have to deal with huge data and while tackling with data you also need to understand that data that how it is working so having a good knowledge of maths makes it easier for you.

 3. If you are in Game Development field like 3D games and 3D graphics will involve linear algebra and really getting into a lot of the numbers and the south side of thing things however nowadays even with 3D graphics there are so many libraries that do the math out there for you so there always are ways around  and I find 2D physics such as games like Angry Birds or 3D physics a lot of these games that involve physics,  you will need to learn some physics equations in order to program them but even with these examples that I have given you there are so many libraries out there that you can incorporate that even if you aren't a math or algebra or physics major you can still completely program using these libraries. 

That doesn't mean though that you shouldn't learn your math skills for these kind of careers because I have end of the day it's important to know what's going on under the hood at the end of the day though if you are writing web development or software development mobile development you do not need on average a ton of math skills especially if you are going to get into software development from a non-traditional standpoint meaning you are going to school for computer science and yourself learning or a boot camp or anything like that then having these extreme math skills are definitely good.

 4. Competitive programming doesn’t not typically requires high level mathematics but you need to have full grab on topics such as Big Integer, GCD, LCM, Euclidean algorithm, Sieve of Eratosthenes, Modulo arithmetic, Modulo Inverse, Modulo exponentiation

 4. If you're doing things like Python or PHP JavaScript anything like those languages you will not need to be in math expert or I mean those are languages that I know and I'm definitely not a math expert by any means.

 

 To sum up what skills are important rather than having math you still need to have very logical thinking and problem-solving process once again though even though math might not be the most important skills that are really important would include logical thinking and problem-solving being able to take a problem and really break it down into smaller components. 

I think  it's really an  essential part in learning how to build different algorithms or solve different problems you really can't just look at the entire picture even though looking at the entire picture is important you always have to break it down even further as well and a lot of these abilities come from having a strong math background so even though it's not essential or necessary for you to know math in order to do programming having a strong math background is definitely not going to hurt you but even if you don't have a strong math background it should not dissuade you from getting into programming or software development or web development it's such a great industry to be in and math is definitely definitely not required