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Season 4, Ep. 2 - So You Want To Be a Developer (Part 2)
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How much math you need depends on what kind of software you'll be working on. Linear algebra is useful in anything to do with graphics, both 2D and 3D.
This episode (and the previous one) seems like good advice both for game programming specifically and programming in general.
your = belonging to you
their = belonging to them
there = not here
they're = they are
I would've done the same goddamn thing. I hate math.
Abstract algebra gave me some good perspective on everything else I was learning. I do much better with a subject once I have some framework to help me relate it all together. Seeing integers, rational numbers, etc in terms of groups/rings/fields really helped in that regard.
I wish I could say I retained some of it, but it's all pretty much gone out the window along with everything that isn't probability or discrete math related.
You know, I started reading up on abstract algebra recently, and I remember thinking "holy shit, this is like... directly applicable to the shit I've been doing lately."
I've always loved math, but it hasn't always loved me back. I do kinda want to just start my own study curriculum; brush up on my trig and algebra, take another swing at what I took in college, like linear algebra, calc/DE, and automata, and then carry it through to shit I haven't studied before. I've been kinda looking for some kind of general tree of prerequisites to know where to start and where to continue, but haven't found anything great yet.
your = belonging to you
their = belonging to them
there = not here
they're = they are
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Thanks for the link, I'll ask there :-)
You can say there are two very different mindsets at work, but to be really excellent, you should be able to switch between them. The coding part, with its systemic approach and problem solving focus was described well, but to design a product, framework or distributed sytems you have to focus more on the connections than on the parts. In my experience the best developers came top down... they started out as users, thought how to make things better and got into developing via a route via Webtechnologies and found themself constantly getting deeper.
On the other hand I experienced people with the skillsets that were described here very good on the deep levels far from user interaction. This is where the mathematics come into play. Those are the skillsets that a IT-college will give you. But usually you don't need those deep level things, because you can built atop of the work of their products because you don't have to reinvent databases, 3D frameworks, pathfinding routines from scratch every project, whereas the parts that make the product need more of the other type.
I often have the impression that in the OpenSource community the "coder"-type is dominant, so the focus lies more on finding solutions to one certain problems but when thats done and in any way usable its called a success, leaving actual users with hard to use interfaces. It got better the last years, but even in such common products like Eclipse I kept the impression.
The same dichotomy is found in the part about social competence, which interestingly corelates strong with Simon Baron Cohens approach to EQ (emahtical quotient) vs SQ (Systemizing quotient). A high EQ makes you a better designer and architect, a high SQ makes you excellent where it comes to coding.