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RE: Another mutated variant of the 'PowerPoint makes yo udumb'

• To: "'Strolia-Davis Christopher Contr MSG/MAT'" <Christopher.Strolia-Davis@w...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: Another mutated variant of the 'PowerPoint makes yo udumb' story
• From: Jeff Lowery <Jeff.Lowery@c...>
• Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 11:56:37 -0800

> To add a bit to this conversation, I would like to say that when I went 
> into programming in the first place, I did not have a high school math 
> equivalent knowledge(I was 12 when I started ok).  So it is clear to me 
> that it is not necessary to have high math skills to be a programmer.

> However, it is clear that many math skills are used in programming (even
> if they don't actually use numbers).  After my third failed attempt at 
> Calculus, I quit trying, but I beefed up even more on my programming 
> skills.  In time, I took a Stats class that was using a lot of Calculus, 
> and I actually did very well. 

I went for a combined Math/CS degree in college, although my math abilities
are pretty spotty (like you, I had to reattempt calculus more than once, and
barely passed linear algebra; but (somewhat surprisingly) the more advanced
intuitive/abstract subjects, such as abstract algebra and 4th-order partial
differential equations, I did better at).  

Anyway, most the math I learned was long ago forgotten, even the more
practical stuff like numerical analysis (where you learned, say, how to
perform integration via several methods) I never ended up using in my
career. Suprisingly, stuff like statistics (which didn't use calculus) and
symobolic logic, which I pickup up respectively in psychology and philosophy
classes, were very useful starting out. 

I suppose had I went into a more scientific or engineering area, my math
knowledge would have been called on more often. I still know enough matrix
algebra to manage the occasional tranformation using 3rd party packages, but
most math functions I need I can find on the web and they're much better
than what I could write myself. Still, having a math background hasn't hurt:
I know what to look for on the rare occasions when I need something more
esoteric than simple algebra.

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