@MutoShack@functional.cafe
Do these books focus on any certain language? I'm not a programmer, but want to start volunteering with an open source project. I've heard of TAOCP, but what is SICP?
What language do you feel a programming newbie should tackle first?
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They are not specific to any language. The focus is on algorithms mostly.
@MutoShack@functional.cafe
My recent background is in life sciences. Do you feel a background in math is critical for understanding in computer science? Would these books be out of reach if I haven't had a college math course in a number of years? It's been a while...
@MutoShack@functional.cafe
I guess it depends on what you want to do and what sort of programmer you want to be.
There are classes of problems, bugs, and performance issues, you could never hope to solve as a computer scientist without a math background. At the same time there are plenty of classes of problems you can approach with a logical mind and minimal math.
I would say that any well rounded top of his class computer programmer needs to know math and computer theory. But if you lack those skills you can still be of help to a team and be productive, albeit at a diminished capability.
The issue is that if you dont know the math and theory, and no one else on your team does either, it can be hard for you to tell the difference. I often have programmers without a math/algorithms background propose solutions that sound perfectly feasable but due to my background I can immediately recognize that the proposed design will be impossible (perhaps due to performance limitations). I can likewise distinguish between solvable problems and unsolvable ones where someone without the background cant.
With that said I think if you have a logical mind and can understand mathy concepts even without the actual math, then yes you can probably get through an algorithms book and learn something. I would however suggest if you dont have a decent foundation in math you work on that as well.
@MutoShack@functional.cafe
Math is a bit of a weird topic... they use all sorts of crazy vocabulary and personally I think its just not needed. Most concepts to read them on wikipedia will make you go cross eyed, but if someone explains the ideas in plain english they often are so trivial you laugh at the fact that you never understood it in the first place.
Khan academy really does a great job at addressing that problem IMO.
All that said I suspect the math will come back to you really fast. It also helps if you try to do actual tasks rather than just learn the theory. I always learn the most math when I try to build things with math, rather than reading from a text book.
@MutoShack@functional.cafe
@freemo
Good feedback, thanks! Maybe I'll have to refresh my math on Khan Academy or something. I'm almost afraid to see how much I've completely forgotten.
It's not so much I don't have the foundation. I made it through Calculus 2, but I haven't used it in 15ish years after a career change from computers to healthcare. I suppose you could say I'm a little... behind the curve when it comes to math 🤣
I'd like to consider myself somewhat logically inclined, but it's all relative to whom I compare it.
Maybe I'll order the books, and if they're way out of my league (quite possible) set them down while I refresh/increase my math skills. I wish I found learning math as fun as what those skills can eventually be used to create.
@MutoShack@functional.cafe