Ask HN: I'm crap at maths but I seem to be a pretty good developer
Does that make sense? Is it possible to be a good developer who is ordinary at math? Would I get a job anywhere?
I've known guys back in my CS classes who got straight A's in the hard CS theory and had C's in the required calc courses, where the grading curves were shared by students from all majors.
Let's admit it -- being a developer is like learning a new language -- what's so different from constructing logical sentences with C# than constructing logical statements with a foreign language? Yes there is a DIFFERENCE, but really, the basic building blocks are the same...
When I was 11, I learned c++ with a buddy (also 11) and after school we'd work on fun little games together. I know I would never cut it in a pure math phd-type track and he definitely wasn't able to hack it when he got to college and majored in math -- he dropped out and switched majors halfway.
As for getting a job, there are many avenues to take. The key is to show that you can and have solved real problems using your skills of analysis, design and implementation.
Of course, some HN readers will ask "On what basis have you reached the conclusion that you are a 'pretty good developer'?"
Being good at verbal reasoning, organizational skills, keeping track of complex things is far more important than math. Math skills for computing are way overrated IMHO.
I expect that the notion that we need math to do computing has to do with early computers being used mostly to design nuclear weapons. That made sense then but not today.
99% of a business software developer's math usage is going to be elementary school algebra or less complicated. If you're doing game development, HFT, or certain other specialized fields, there will be a lot more math, but that doesn't apply for the vast majority of programming out there.