I love maths, do you love maths ? I think everyone have studied maths in his/her life, it is the most basic and important subject. Some people love maths and some other hate it. In my opinion maths is not difficult rather than it is very confusing.

Have you ever thought of learning coding/programming ? If, yes then this question must arise in your mind -  "How much math is required for coding/programming ?". This is the most important and common question that mostly come in the mind of begineers who just started learning coding. If this question also come in your mind then you are in a right place because in this post I will solve your all doubts.  

Read this post to the end carefully if you are really serious about learning coding. This post will help you to get the answers of all your questions.

After reading this post you will get to know :-

  • How much maths is required for learning coding ?
  • What are the different fields of programming and how much math you need for learning them ?
  • Why programmers are good in maths ?
  • Can you learn coding if you don't know anything in maths ?
  • What are the most important math topics for coders ?

So let's start.

How much maths is required for learning coding ?

If you are a begineer who want to starting learning coding, then you don't need to be a genius in maths, there is no problem if you are weak in maths, you can start learning the basics of coding. Note that if you are just learning the basics than good maths is not necessary, but if you are learning advance topics then good maths is necessary.

If you learn math as a coder you will get many advantages and you will become more productive.

Advantages of learning Maths as a coder

  1. Things become easier for you and you will able to understand things in a better way.
  2. You will become more intelligent, creative and productive.
  3. You can be a better coder and learn advance things easily.
  4. You will able to solve complex problems.
  5. If you are a math expert who is applying for job as a programmer than the chances of getting job will become higher.
Actually, it is enough for you if you know the basics maths of your higher classes that you have learnt in school because high school level maths teaches you all the basics which is required for programming.  But many of  you might be in 6th, 7th or 8th standard till now, but you can still learn programming easily because I also started in 7th standard and I don't face any major problem that can stop me from learning anything.

What are the different fields of programming and how much math you need for learning them ?

There are different fields of programming, thats why how much maths you should learn is totaly depends on what you are doing.
Some of the feilds of programming are :

1. Web Development

Web development is very popular among developers. It is used for creating websites. Website is a collection of web pages hosted on a server, whenever we want to access a website we enter the url of site in browser and browser send request to server of that website and in return we get a response. You can view a compelte guide to web development here. It is easy to create a website. Mainly a website has two parts :- 

i. Frontend - The part of website which is also called client side. Here we deals with work such designing, making websites responses and handling events (For eg- When user click a button, here clicking a button is a event.). We need to learn HTML, CSS and Javscript for this. HTML is use for making the body of website, CSS is used for designing a website and Javascript is  used for embeding some logic and functions to a website along with body and design.

ii. Backend - It is also called server side of a website. Here we need to deal with work such as sending request and reciving response, managing databases, performing CURD (Create-Read-Update-Delete) with the database and more other works. Here we need to learn languages like NodeJS, Python and PHP etc.

Some people who works on both frontend and backend of a website are called fullstack developer.

If you want to become a web developer then no maths is required because in frontend development you need to design a website which is not a rocket science while in backend you need to embed a little bit logic for which you don't need to be a expert in maths.

2. App Development

App development is a work of creating apps that you use on daily basis in your phone or tablets. I don't think their is nothing to explain about a app, everyone knows how to use and install apps. Apps are simple piece of software that runs on our mobile. It is not a hard task to create a app. App are of two types :- 

i. Native apps - Apps which are specifically designed and made for a specific kind of OS are called native apps. In case of mobile native apps are made either for Android or IOS. If you want to make Android app you need to use Java. You can also use Kotlin but I think java is a better choice. On the other hand for creating IOS app you need to use Swift/Objective-C. Swift is a more better and modern choice for creating IOS app. If you are making a native app then you need to develop a sepreate app for android and IOS. Native apps run fast because they are designed for specific platforms.

ii. Hybird apps - What happen if you can create a app for both android and IOS with a single code base ? Isn't it amazing. Hybird apps are apps which are not platform specific you can create a single app for both android an*-d IOS and they work fine without any problem. But hybird app are slower than native apps. You can use frameworks React Native, Xamarin and Ionic  for creating hybird apps.

Math required for app development is very little, basic knowledge of maths is enough. 

3. Data Science

The ultimate power of present time is data. Data Science is a work of dealing with data and taking out productive outcome form that data using various algorithims. Python is the best language for data science , it provides library like Pandas for data science.

In Data science maths is must. As you need to deal with data good knowledge of linear algebra, statistics and probability is must. So don't learn data science before learning these topics.

4. Machine Learning

Machine learning is a subset of AI where we train a machine to perform a specific task. In machine learning we need to deal with a lot of data. Machine learning are of three types -

i. Supervised learning - Here we have given a labeled data and we need to train our model on that labelled dataset.

ii. Unsupervised learning - Here the dataset is not labelled and we need to train our model on that unlabelled dataset.
 
iii. Reinforcement learning - It is different form supervised and unsupervised learning, here a agent is put into an environment. The agent travel from one state to another, where the agent gets reward when it gets success. In this way the agent learn anything.

In machine learning good maths is must because here we need to work with different algorithims and we also deal with a large data.

5. Competitive programming

Competitive programming is all about logic and finding solution of problems, in competitive programming data structures and algorithim are must.

So, for learning competitive programming you need to be good in maths.

You can learn more about these topics from youtube and different websites.


Why programmers are good in maths ?

Do you know why programmers are good in maths ? The only reason for this is that most of them are highly trained professional who learned advanced math after spending a lot of time with books and computer. But there are also many other programmers who are from a non-mathematical background and still they are expert, and some of them are also better than those programmers who spend many years in learning maths. It is because they are very dedicated to their work and learn anything only if required. They don't spend time in reading thick books, they just  learn and understand new things as per their requirements.
So if you are a begineer who is learning bascis, then learn slowly and understand things properly, if you try to learn things fast you can't able to understand things properly and easy concept will become hard for you.

Can you learn coding if you don't know anything in maths ?

I have told you if you are weak in maths you can learn coding without any problems. But what if you are a 0 in maths and don't know anything in maths ? Can you still learn coding ? The answer is "Yes" because whether you believe me or not, no one  is 0 in maths. Almost everyone except newborn baby knows the fundamental concepts of maths like addition, subtraction, mutliplication and division. So you can still learn programming if you consider yourself a 0 in maths. You may face some problems in future, but interent and google is always ready for your help, so don't worry at all, just do hardwork and focus on your work.

What are the most important maths topic for coders ?

Some important maths topics for programmers are :-

1. Linear Algebra

Linear algebra is one of the most important and good to know topic for coders. If you want to work in Data Science or Machine learning then linear algebra is must for you because here you need to deal with terms like scalar, vector and matrix etc. As a progammer you need to deal with different types of equation thats why understanding about equation and solving equations help you very much in coding . It is one of the things that we learn in schools that why maths that you learned in your school is very helpful for you if you are learning programming. If you are familiar with deep learning and neural networks, then you probably know that neural networks also use linear algebra.

2. Calculus

Calculus is also a very intresting topic of math. In the field of machine learning calculus is always involved in some ways. It plays a important role in machine learning alogrithim. So, it is a important part of programming.  Here we deal with contionous change as calculus is the study of continous change.

3. Graph Theory

Graphs Theory is amazing and important topic in bot maths and programming. Graphs theory is all about graphs. Graph is a simple represtentation of points which are connected by lines. Each point is a vertex and each line is a edge. Garphs are simply used to study relation between two or more points. Think of google maps, it is also a graph where different places are plotted as a points and if you need to go from point X to point Y then the algorithim behind google maps will show you the shortest path from X to Y. 

4. Statistics and Probability

Statistics and probability are most important and useful topics of math which are widely used in programming. Statistics and Probability are must when it comes to machine learning and data science. Probability is all about chanes, events and random outcomes, while statistics is all about handling data with different techniques.

These are topics that you must learn if you are learning advance things like Machine Learning, Data Science, Deep learning or Data Structures and algorithim. You can learn these topics easily from interent for free or if you want you can also buy paid courses.

A pro tip for you -

If you are learning coding you can also learn maths together with coding as per your need, so go slow and learn each topic by taking time, along with practice and excerises because if you don't know maths then learning all important maths topic together is not a work of short time, so you need to work hard and be patience. Please don't try to study these things too much deeply because maths is a ocean and you can't learn all these things breifly along with coding.

So don't stop learning and don't take pressure on you mind because learning new things is easy if you focus on what you do. 

You can learn maths for coding from many books and free resources like websites and videos which are available on interent for free.


That all, hope you find this helpful please share it with more people and comment for more such amazing posts. 

Thanks