Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
Come for the quick hacks, stay for the epiphanies.
 
PerlMonks  

comment on

( [id://3333]=superdoc: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??
Hmmm,

Interesting thought. I love to program, and I absolutely love geometry, but not how it is taught in high schools. (I took advanced geometry in university).

So, do I think that the learning the methods of programming give a more general education than learning the methods of geometry?

When I try to solve very difficult algorithms, I find that I do it in the same fashion that I try to solve any problem. I'm not sure that I learned my problem solving techniques via school, but more that I honed the ability by applying it to a variety of different tasks (programs, math, science, how to repair my stupid leaking tap...).

But, programming is more than just problem solving. It also has asthetic qualities. For example, lots of posts here are "How do I make my clunky code nicer?".

And... when we need to program something which other people will use (instead of for your own use), you truly have to put yourself into the mind of the user. How would they want to use it, what do they need, etc. Learning how to do this certainly helps us problem solve in ways that is certainly not required by mathematicians.

So I guess that there is a lot of 'general knowledge' gained by learning to program than is generally given credit.

Just don't discount what some people learn from geometry. Those who are really into it go nuts over neat proofs the same way we all go nuts over cool code.


In reply to Re: Programming & real life by Sandy
in thread Programming & real life by nothingmuch

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post; it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
    <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>
  • Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
  • Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.
Log In?
Username:
Password:

What's my password?
Create A New User
Domain Nodelet?
Chatterbox?
and the web crawler heard nothing...

How do I use this?Last hourOther CB clients
Other Users?
Others studying the Monastery: (4)
As of 2024-03-29 04:41 GMT
Sections?
Information?
Find Nodes?
Leftovers?
    Voting Booth?

    No recent polls found