Ask HN: Developers often need to solve mathematical optimization problems?

1 point·leoplct··6 comments

For developers: When you develop application, do you have often need to solve a mathematical/optimization problems?

Give me some examples...

Depends on the app you are writing. For example - in my daily work I've used math more complicated than computing average/sum of numbers only a few times in 5 years. Once it was geometry on a plane when writing code for pathfinding in a warehouse (great fun :) ), other times it was mostly to calculate amounts of goods based on something (mostly converting units, calculating volumes, etc - basic stuff).

My hobby is wrtiing games, mostly 2d, but I've tried doing 3d too, and there you use math much more often. Mostly 2d/3d geometry, integration for game physic (for most purposes naive Euler integration suffices, and it's really simple, you can invent it without knowing about physics, nor what integral is, but still - it's math). Also requires math - collision checking, ai, space indexing, pathfinding.

When optimizing something, basic statistic is handy, but not required. And sometimes it's nice to be able to come up with Fermi-style estimate of something - like how much cpu time/memory you will need if you make this initial decision or that.

Thanks! It was interesting

My current app involves location and mapping using multiple co-ordinate systems - so trigonometry on a curved surface for starters.

May you provide me more detailed information about the problem that you're solving? You can also email me at: napster3000 gmail.com Thanks

My current app involves optimization (main point of the app actually) that fits squares in shapes in a certain way.

May you provide me more detailed information about the problem that you're solving? You can also email me at: napster3000 gmail.com Thanks

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