To rephrase: Discrete Mathematics can either refer to a certain subsection of undergraduate mathematics courses (those that aren’t continuous) or a single course for getting everybody up to speed with what they need (that isn’t continuous) for engineers and computer scientists, as Danah said. Some of it will be known from probability (again, available on Khan) such as combinations and permutations. It follows the classical arithmetic->algebra+geometry->trigonometry->calculus path, with digressions primarily for younger learnes (how to graph, basic stuff like that).Īnyway, the reason is that once you have either learned calculus and everything that comes before it, or struggled with calculus a bit but understood what came before it, the basics of discrete mathematics are quite easy. The choice of that course being required for IT, but not for an kind of CS makes zero sense.ĭiscrete Mathematics is a term that is often used for those mathematical subjects which are utterly essential to computer science, but which computer scientists needn’t dive too deeply into.īut Khan Academy doesn’t cover this in its core mathematics, which culminates in the harder (IMO) calculus subjects, it must be admitted. :( The course I took was in the Information Technology curriculum, which is geared toward IT management. I have an AA in Computer Science, if such a title means anything at all. School throws folks into the mix and asks them to make software by a deadline because that is what the industry wants, but without this kind of foundation, they are throwing them to the wolves. While Boolean Algebra is a formal system leading into Discrete Math, the entry point, the topic is so much richer: combinatorics, graph theory, generating functions. A curriculum or body of learning resources in computer science ( as a science ) or in programming ( as a professional skill ) without Boolean Algebra is incomplete. Raised my level of literacy when researching various topics in the literature.īoolean Algebra is fundamentally important to computer science. I posted about this on another zendesk issue here.Īfter having been a hobbyist programmer for several year, going back to school and taking up computer science officially, and after 5 years of study off and on, taking a course Discrete Mathematics ( including Boolean Algebra ) did three things for me.
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