this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
266 points (91.8% liked)

math

794 readers
1 users here now

General community for all things mathematics on @lemmy.world

Submit link and text posts about anything at all related to mathematics.

Questions about mathematical topics are allowed, but NO HOMEWORK HELP. Communities for general math and homework help should be firmly delineated just as they were on reddit.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Code is something you can play with in a variety of environments and get an intuition for through experimentation. Its a system you can inspect and manipulate and explore yourself. It’s also a language which you can use yourself and create your own abstractions incrementally if helpful.

Ideally better syntax would be used for learning, a Python style rather than C style for loop for example, in which case you’re starting to get toward natural language.

In the end though, I’m not putting programming languages on a pedestal here. I’m saying mathematical notation ought not be thought of as the only way to express and understand mathematical ideas, especially for the purposes of learning, on which some of the points I made just above are relevant as is the link I provided further up. Whatever efficiency it can bring, it also brings opacity and it’s inevitably useful to be prepared to provide other expressions of the equations or systems.