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Love Programming, but hate discrete structures

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  • 24-11-2010 11:32pm
    #1
    ITguy2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 40 ✭


    I’m currently doing a Computer Science course in first year and while I really enjoy the programming aspect of it, I am having trouble with comprehending and making sense of a module called Discrete Structures. While I like the java / programming side of CS and could see myself progressing in this area to both later years of college, and work after college – I am seriously stuck in a rut when it comes to discrete structures.

    To be frank with this, I haven’t got a clue what the lecturer is talking about and fear that I may fail this module. If there are any other Computer science students / graduates / workers on here, could you tell me if discrete structures is a vital part of computer science and programming, and do you use it much? Or is it still possible to become a CS scientist / networker / programmer etc without a good understanding of discrete structures?
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    #2
    CreepingDeath
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,015 ✭✭✭CreepingDeath


    I was taught a lot of maths in my degree course, and have never had to use it in the commercial world of software development (over 16 years experience).

    I have used it in my own pet projects at home, eg. writing 3D graphics libraries, but never needed it in typical application programming. ( J2EE )

    So don't despair if you think most computer programming is that math intensive.
    Usually a company has a few math degree people who can also program for the tricky stuff.


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    #3
    amen
    Registered Users Posts: 2,781 ✭✭✭amen


    A lot of the maths stuff is in the CS course as traditional computers where used to solve real world problems such as gun trajectories and these were solved using mathematical methods and the people who did the programming where normally from a physics/electrical engineering background.
    So when CS started to be taught as a degree subject the maths required to model/solve complex real world problems was also taught.

    Most likely you will never need to use the maths again.


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    #4
    NeverSayDie
    Registered Users Posts: 515 ✭✭✭NeverSayDie


    As it happens, there was a thread along similar lines a few weeks back OP, some of the discussion there may be of use to you too;
    http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056078442

    I think the gist of what myself and others told the OP in that thread was that, while most (but by no means all) software development jobs won't involve much heavy maths directly, learning maths is a useful part of a software developer's education. Software development is by its very nature a mathematically-themed exercise, and the kind of logical, structured thinking and problem-solving you learn while studying math subjects is very relevant to how we do what we do.

    There's also the fact that it's a computer science course, and in the case of discrete mathematics in particular, that is directly related to what theoretical computer scientists (as opposed to software developers) do. Not really my area, but Wikipedia and the likes have some background on that, eg; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_mathematics#Theoretical_computer_science


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