You do not need math to be a software developer
Most developers end up working on web applications or mobile applications, I mean that is where the money is. A large portion of these developers solve seemingly simple but very important problems that help small and big businesses. CRUD applications are at the heart of many business based web applications and mobile applications out there and they basically require no math to implement them. So where does this dubious and ludicrous myth come from? I mean the myth that if one does not learn complex discrete and continuous math, one cannot succeed as a developer. These myths are not just false, they are dangerous “pieces of advice” to the vast majority of developers who just want to build web applications and mobile apps with react, angularjs, nodejs, flutter, xamarin, django, etc.
Before we go on I will like to make clear what I mean by “math”. If i go to the cake store to purchase a cup-cake for $3 and I give the cup-cake seller $10, then my change is $7. However, if I buy 2 cup-cakes, then my change will be $4 dollars. How would the cake-seller know this? If he/she cannot compute this simple math, then he/she could be cheated by some customers. Does that mean that math is required to be a cake/dress/ice-cream seller? The answer is no as such “math” would be considered common sense.
Most web developers and mobile developers will never use basic algebra in their entire career. I mean take for example, 3x + 14 = 42, what is x? this would be considered grade 6 to grade 7 math. But this kind of math would be beyond the scope of what most software developers would ever do in the web and mobile space. Most developers just need a good understanding of addition, subtraction and when to use them. Notice I didn’t even go into multiplication and division as that may not even be needed.
Some of the pro-math pontificators would say, “oh no you are wrong! what of algorithms complexity? The big-fat O!! ” Okay let us talk about that. With very powerful modern computers today, your applications would have to perform an operation on billions of elements before one notices any kind of difference between O(n . logn) and O(n-squared). Even such differences would be negligible for lots of applications. If your efficient algorithm helps your application run a task in 4 seconds rather than 5.5 seconds, are you really going to gain customers for that? Most applications do not even rely on such performance. When developing video games or other real-time applications, then it starts to matter.
So what if you like math so much? All the geometry, trigonometry, calculus, etc that you have learnt, is it all a waste? well it depends. There are areas of programming that are really math based. In fact, if you are not a math wiz, avoid certain areas of programming. 3D game/game engine development, audio programming, simulations, physics programming for physics engines, writing 3D graphics APIs, geo-spacial software, robotics, bio-informatics, complex data analytics software development, and the list goes on.
Umm, wasn’t that a lot? well yes and no. The list of areas where math is needed in programming might be long, however these are really niche areas and lots of people will not be doing this kinds of tasks. If you take the stack-overflow survey for instance, most people are usually doing web front-end, web back-end or mobile development.
“So what’s harmful in learning all the complex math?” “Even if I do not need it, is it really bad learning it?” Well we live in a very competitive era. Now more than ever there are lots and lots of developers out there and you cannot afford learning useless stuff that would not be needed on the job. There are lots of frameworks and plugins out there to learn. Your time is better spent writing more tests, better documentation, code polishing, etc. All of which your fancy calculus would not help you do.
So for all the new people getting into tech, do not let any mis-informed person discourage you. If your math is not great, you can still be a fantastic developer. Pick up your computer, your VS code, and start learning to code with tons of resources from youtube.