Ask HN: What are some important math topics every programmer should know?
I'm a self taught full stack developer who's flunk out of high school and did not have the chance to study "advanced" maths such as calculus, statistics and probability.
In 10 years of experience I never felt the need for any of it, and a recent contract requires, for a simple feature, the basic knowledge of derivatives (given a polynomial curve, graph it in a dotted line when it falls off from the local maxima).
I've started catching up on courses on Khan Academy and having a great time. My question is, which math (or physics) knowledge have you actually used in your programming career, and think it's mandatory for software engineers to know?
PS: If anyone from Khan Academy is reading this, thank you for your project, you're doing a great service for humanity.
In 10 years of experience I never felt the need for any of it, and a recent contract requires, for a simple feature, the basic knowledge of derivatives (given a polynomial curve, graph it in a dotted line when it falls off from the local maxima).
I've started catching up on courses on Khan Academy and having a great time. My question is, which math (or physics) knowledge have you actually used in your programming career, and think it's mandatory for software engineers to know?
PS: If anyone from Khan Academy is reading this, thank you for your project, you're doing a great service for humanity.