Re: Programming skills required by mathematicians?

On Jun 29, 7:25 pm, Jason Glumidge <Jason.Glumi...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Jun 27, 6:59 am, Marshall <marshall.spi...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > On Jun 26, 8:35 pm, Phil Hobbs
> > <pcdhSpamMeSensel...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > > Marshall wrote:
> > > > On Jun 26, 2:14 pm, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSensel...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >> Frederick Williams wrote:
> > > >>> Phil Hobbs wrote:
> > > >>>> I agree that C++ is a good choice.
> > > >>> You must be joking!
> > > >> Why?  I taught myself C++, and have used it to build things like
a
> > > >> big-iron clusterized electromagnetic simulator.  The combination
of
> > > >> C-like performance with the ability to manage complexity that
comes with
> > > >> OO programming is very flexible and powerful.
>
> > > >> Or did I miss something ultra-im****tant?
>
> > > > You did, actually: the existence of other languages that are
better
> > > > at those things.
>
> > > So in other words, "No."
>
> > If you are happy with where you are, and are not concerned
> > about learning anything beyond what you already know,
> > then by all means continue as you have been.
>
> > If you are going to advise other people, then doing so from
> > a place of ignorance is being less than fully responsible
>
> This seems a little harsh.

I stand by my statement. A person who has taught himself
a programming language and advocates not learning anything
new is in no position to provide responsible answers to
someone asking about the relative merits of different languages
for a particular application. One absolutely cannot *compare*
different things if one only has information about one of them!


> Games are all coded in C++ (albeit mostly
> with a script wrapper layered on top), and I'd warrant they have the
> majority of the top coders as their developers as well as the most
> math going on, so there must be something going for c++ somewhere.

I am sorry to inform you that the game industry is a rather small
one; still less than 10 billion dollars annually. The suggestion that
they have most of the top coders is unlikely. For while, say, 3d
graphics is indeed math-intensive, so are things like financial
software, web search, operations research algorithms, etc.
and these make a lot more money.


> C++ is at the very least a good language to have under your belt, and
> I find it surprising that anyone would think otherwise.

There are plenty of people who despise C++, and some of
them even have a decent argument. I do not myself despise
it, although I tend to avoid it where possible.


> Certainly it
> has limitations - even with boost it lacks Java's library collection
> and it can be decidedly idiosyncratic. However its low-level nature
> can actually be a good step to learning whats going on under the hood
> in general, and it is both powerful and widely sup****ted (and one
> should not ignore the im****tance of sup****t to those just beginning).
> Perhaps more than anything C++ templating functionality is unmatched
> in imperative languages (with Java generics merely providing dynamic
> casting), pu****ng forward techniques such as Alexandrescu's policy
> based approach.

I'd agree with almost all of this, especially the part about
templates.


> To be honest many top-notch Java coders I know are bailing from Java's
> verbosity and clunkiness in favor of other languages with functional
> features built upon the JVM (such as Scala say). I'd personally
> recommend the OP get 101's in C++, Java, Python and Haskell and then
> continue to learn whichever he finds a preference for. Lisp is worth
> reading about for educational purposes in my book, and for a
> mathematician list comprehension syntax in all languages is worth
> investigating. I would also however echo your sentiments that the OP
> should actively investigate non-imperative approaches.

I'd mostly agree with this too. (I haven't personally seen anyone
jumping to Scala, but it does seem to be picking up a bit of steam.)


Marshall