Member Avatar for NetJunkie

--Current Situation--

I am currently enrolled in a community college trying to get the base classes out of the way so when I transfer to Virginia Tech or UVA I can start working on my engineering degree. I love programming very very much and couldn't see myself a day without it.

--My Question(s)--

1.) Are any of you Computer Software Engineers?
2.) What do you do in your everyday job? (If Employed)
3.) What is your primary language? (VB.NET, C#, C++, etc.)

And last but not least, the most important question in my opinion:

4.) Why do you need to take Calculus and Physics to be a Computer Software Engineer?

-Chris

  • 6 Contributors
  • 5 Replies
  • 227 Views
  • 2 Months Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by firepit
Member Avatar for Rashakil Fol

1.) Are any of you Computer Software Engineers?

Yes. That is, I am one.

2.) What do you do in your everyday job? (If Employed)

Right now I work on a high performance database engine.

3.) What is your primary language? (VB.NET, C#, C++, etc.)

I don't have a primary language. None of my coworkers have primary languages. Our product is written in C++, though. Right now we deal with a lot of C++ and Python, at quantities within the same order of magnitude.

4.) Why do you need to take Calculus and Physics to be a Computer Software Engineer?

You don't need calculus if you want to be a developer.

But learning calculus does teach you all sorts of useful things that if you're smart will help you with things you're programming. For example if you want to generate N unique random integers from 1 to 1000000 by generating individual random numbers from 1 to 1000000 and throwing out duplicates, you might want to know how many it can take. That's kind of hard to treat as a discrete problem, but if you treat it as continuous you can treat the thing as differential equation which is easily solved and you'll see that you'll need approximately -1000000 * log(1 - N/1000000) individual random numbers chosen. That's can help you pick the right value of N at which to switch to a different random number generation method, but outside of generating distinct random numbers, I've come across this problem several times when dealing with sources of pseudorandom data in which actually doing the math was important.

Another example: suppose you want to have a system that responds dynamically to resource constraints to produce optimal behavior. You can make a decision that will trade off disk throughput with memory usage, and there's a time delay before you can measure the consequences of this decision. How do you do it?

The answer involves math that uses calculus.

Suppose you want to write a chess website that has a rating system. How does the chess rating system work? If you want to understand what it is and how it works, you'll need to understand calculus.

Calculus is a tool that makes a crapload of math problems so freaking easy to solve. That's why you need to learn it.

Physics might be useful just because it makes you practice your calculus in ways that involve units of measure. (It turned out to be more useful to me because I got a job that benefited from basic knowledge of optics. It's plausible that you could get a job where you do some physical calculations or need to be able to follow along, and this is easier if you already know it.) It's not very useful if you want to be some enterprise java programmer, but why torture yourself like that?

Edited by Rashakil Fol because: n/a
Member Avatar for markmatt

my specialization is in php.Using PHP i create dynamic website.

Member Avatar for amrafel

i am in a community college and i want to transfer to the university of va or va tech.what are the odds.i am also planning on majoring on computer science...i would like more info on this matter...thnk u
how much is the average salary for a software engineer?
do you need to take calculus 2 n 3 or just calculus?
how hard would you say it is? being a software engineer i am sure you would know...

Member Avatar for venmalathy

markmatt i agree with you............

Member Avatar for firepit

1.) Are any of you Computer Software Engineers?

Yes.

2.) What do you do in your everyday job? (If Employed)

i am free lancer and working online projects with big ammount

3.) What is your primary language? (VB.NET, C#, C++, etc.)
vb.net and vb6

Edited by Narue because: Removed fake signature
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