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Is programming feasible for those without methodical minds?

Can a mathematician be bad at basic programming?

  • Sometimes i meet a mathematics student that say without any problem "The basic programing exam is really hard!" (i mean: just a bit of procedural programming in java or C++ [1]). Since i think (maybe i'm wrong) that programming is a branch of logic and logic is tightly related to mathematical abilities, each time i heard that statement i wonder "how is it possible that this guy have problems?". For clarity: they can do without any problem the algorithm in their minds but they find hard to write the algorithm explicity in steps, either in our mothertongue or pseudocode or code. [1] Examples: do a program that find, without bothering around efficience, the maximum in a vector. Do a program that multiplies two matrices and something like this.

  • Answer:

    This is most likely just due to a lack of experience. The maths student isn't a programmer. Has never done any programming before this class, doesn't spend their spare time doing it, so yeah it's hard. You're right that with practice someone who studies maths should be at least competant at programming because they know how to think logically, but without that practice they're as bad as anyone else who's not done it before. It's a fairly common for people with a strong maths backgrounds starting to learn programming to find thinking of an algorithm to perform a task easy, but to find actually writing code to carry out that algorithm quite hard.

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I know a guy who is absolutely horrible at basic programming (even his latex documents look ugly) but he is quite good at maths! He is going to become a mathematician in a few years. According to me, the main reason behind this is his lack of practice with actual programming (not algorithms) which can probably be attributed to his attitude towards computer programming as he has very low regard for things other than pure maths done on pencil and paper. I think you are right in saying that "programming is a branch of logic and logic is tightly related to mathematical abilities" but for a person who is not trained in programming, these things would obviously be hard.

Anurag Bishnoi

Yeah, sure. Math people are good at solving problems and understanding concepts and doing all the computer science out there(hyperbole but pretty accurate). But writing out implementations and debugging and testing and documenting? Well, maybe they have an upper hand in looking for places where the code fails but all of those tasks have nothing to do with math and are 'carpentry', and they are frustrating when one doesn't know how to do them and isn't experienced with them.

Jose R Urriola

Sure. In a sense, it is much more difficult to find a mathematician who is good at programming. Moreover, since almost no one writes down all the formalities while solving some problem / proving a theorem / building up a formal theory, using in their stead such expressions as «obvious», it is quite difficult to such a person to write an algorithm explicitly.

Daniil Kozhemyachenko (Даниил Кожемяченко)

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