this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
102 points (94.7% liked)

Programming

17333 readers
150 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Rules

  • Follow the programming.dev instance rules
  • Keep content related to programming in some way
  • If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
snowe@programming.dev
Ategon@programming.dev
MaungaHikoi@lemmy.nz
102
Can one be too dumb for programming? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 10 months ago by stirner@lemmy.ml to c/programming@programming.dev
88 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I've always flunked at math; and knowing how intertwined programming is with math, I'm skeptical of my ability to learn how to code. Can someone be too dumb to learn programming? If it helps, I'm mostly interested in learning Common Lisp.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] swordsmanluke@programming.dev 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Programming success is more closely associated with language skills than math skills.

Yes, if you need to invent a new algorithm you'll need math. Computer Science is definitely mathematics heavy.

But writing a program is all about expressing your intent in a programming language, step by step. It's about "communicating" with the machine (and your users).

All this to say, I got C- and D grades in my math courses in college and still became a successful computer programmer. I'm not pushing the boundaries of computation, but if you need an app for your business, I can build that for you in a reliable, tested, and flexible manner.

Edit: Also! I love Common LISP. It's such an amazing language and I'm so sad that it isn't more popular in the industry.

[โ€“] jwt@programming.dev 8 points 10 months ago

But writing a program is all about expressing your intent in a programming language, step by step. It's about "communicating" with the machine (and your users).

And your coworkers, and 'you a year from now'. For the love of god have some compassion with 'you a year from now' and save him a day of debugging.