Re: (OT) Should math (or adv. math) be required in CIS degrees?

[FoxtrotUniform]

in reply to (OT) Should math (or adv. math) be required in CIS degrees?

Should math (or adv. math) be required in CIS degrees?

Oh hell yeah.

For one thing (and this is something that you and the other respondents have touched on), university-level math builds strong analytic skills. Writing proofs is very much like writing code, and effort spent learning one will pay off in the other. (In fact, I'd add formal logic to the list you mention -- at the very least propositional and predicate calculi, with modal logic and metalogic as "recommended" subjects.)

For another, math has an annoying habit of cropping up in the most unexpected places. Reachability checking for an even modestly complex web site will bring in graph theory (and woe to the programmer who doesn't consider it!), for example. Most varieties of simulation involve insane amounts of math. (And Every. Single. Programmer. should be familiar with De Morgan's Laws.)

--
The hell with paco, vote for Erudil!
:wq

[dragonchild]

It's funny you mention graph theory - I have been working on a SQL generation tool that is a bunch of calls into Graph and little more. Without that training in Math, I would've been completely lost. (Heck, I was originally completely lost, but several Monks came to my rescue.)