[Discuss] OT: Do CS grads need calculus?

[bill.n1vux at gmail.com (Bill Ricker)]

On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 11:11 AM, Stephen Ronan <sronan at panix.com> wrote:

> "Do CS grads need calculus?"


?Farber's IP list is always amusing, a better rabbit hole than TV Tropes.?

?What do we mean by Computer Science? A degree to qualify one to enter a
Doctoral program so one can teach in such a program? Or a degree to become
a big-shot programmer ?
   (Why would anyone enter our industry today with current job prospects? )?

?Math is good for training thinking.?
Calculus should *not* be the only path to maths, although it is too often
used that way.

Trigonometry as a path to Calculus as a path to "real" Physics is very
over*sold today.
    ?Calculus became the gateway maths class when the Engineering
curriculum was driving education -- originally
Woolwich(1741)/Sandhurst(1801) & West Point (1802), established to provide
scientifically trained officers for the Corps of Artillery and the Royal
Engineers / Corps of Engineers, more recently catching up to Sputnik.
   Today, surveyors' and artillerists' instruments do the trigonometry and
calculus for them.
   Civil,  Electrical, and Mechanical Engineers still need Physics and thus
calculus, to understand their materials. Software Engineers do *not*.
Economists think they need calculus for the appearance of "rigor", but they
get the same results with it as without it. Professional Statisticians need
calculus, but educated consumers of stats do not.

I very much enjoyed Trig, Calc, Physics, and like knowing how the real
world works. But that's me.
   If you're programming Video Games, real Physics is VERY useful, and
knowing enough Calculus to make good approximations too.
   If you're in the guts of a graphics rendering engine, Trig (and
approximations) wins big.
   If you're straddling EE and CS, you need at least a little Calc to do
the electronics.
   But that's not every programmer.   Have i used Calculus in *my* work?
No.  We did have a use of the Exponential function in bond yield
accounting, and of course i've done a little curve fitting with log axes.


We should be changing the core math curriculum for HS & College (for
non-Physics/Engineering majors) to make better citizens: Probability,
Statistics, & Risk Management; Discrete Math.   Those are more useful to
Applied Computer Science students than Calculus too.
   Someone going to teach and research computer science *might* need
Calculus to prove their Big-O theorems ... but the rest don't need it to
use them.

?(A possible counter to this is that in Graham&Knuth's /Concrete Math/ they
use a lot of Calculus in explanations. But i'm claiming we should be able
to teach 1st year students this material without Calculus, just as HS
Physics and 1st year Economics uses series sums instead of integrals. Good
enough if not making professors.)




-- 
Bill Ricker
bill.n1vux at gmail.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/n1vux