Programming + Maths

Hi,

I am 14 years old and I want to learn how to develop programs, especially in Java.

I still in School, and am really really bad at math, do I need to be good at math to be a software developer?

Thank you.

Nick.

Good at Math. is certainly an advantage, however, it is no means a barrier. If you are intending to be a programmer, make sure you learn the basics right. Good understanding of algorithms is a plus (later on your career).

XCode2 is a nice development environment for Java but take time to getting used to. I like Eclipse a lot. Eclipse is a cross platform IDE with tutorials and lots of useful plugins.

Good luck!

Doh!

I am not at all good at maths, I can only do basic stuff

I have to find something else.

MBNick said:

Doh!

I am not at all good at maths, I can only do basic stuff

I have to find something else.

Click to expand...

Irrelevant. You're probably 'not good at maths' because it hasn't interested you so far, and there is little motivation to work harder at it.

If you're really motivated to do coding, you'll pick up the bits of maths you need to do that. I work in a bank and know people who can barely add up, but they still know finance just fine.

I will keep looking into it, but I am getting quite interested in Web Design.

I would have to learn Javascript, would I have to understand maths for that?

Thank you.

To be honest, I was never good at maths at school - and I've just started my first semester of Economic informatics. Part of the course is learning Java, and whilst some of the little programs we're writing are maths related, it's more about thinking a bit logically (which is also a useful skill for maths).

Your 14 - you're not supposed to be good at anything yet! That's why you're at school, to learn that stuff. I'd recommend you get yourself a good book (maybe for christmas?) and just start messing around with things. It's a lot of fun and you can probably teach yourself a lot.


Plus: Once you've got a few basics down, you can switch to other languages quite easily... the general concepts are very similar...

But I am really good a IT, I can fix most if not all Windows and Linux problems! I am excellent with computers, but I want to go further.

I may go into Business and IT, maybe Economics Informatics. I just don't want to find along the way that programming is really hard and I have to be good at maths to be good at programming.

I can only do basic arithmetic, nothing else.

Well, you won't be able to go to college unless you finish secondary school, and maths will be a large part of that...

IT skills are useful, but to be successful or go to college, you'll need to get a general education as well...