What is the difference between a computer genius and a math genius?

Is one smarter than the other, or are they comparable but in different fields?

What is the difference between a high intellect programmer and a high intellect mathematician?

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About 30 IQ points, minimum.

this sadly

cool programmers are 30 IQ points smarter

DESU, I was mostly talking about the median of both fields.

There are geniuses in every field and they are probably equally smart.

But the median programmer is going to be dumb as bricks compared to the median mathematician.

>t. somebody who switched from CS. to Math.

What's more funny is, if one needs a really complex software you don't go around searching for a programmer. You get a mathematician/physicists on the job. They will have more experience dealing with that stuff. Heck even a biologist might.

I was mostly trolling when I wrote that.

I'm not talking about bootcamp code monkeys whenever I say programmers.

I mean people like Linus.. someone that makes an entire OS from scratch. Even if the guy doesn't know real analysis/abstract algebra and/or even failed those courses could you not agree the guy and people like him are very gifted intellectually?

There is something about doing shit like that even if not math whizzes that makes them intellectually smarter than majority of the population.

I complete agree that your average programmer is probably dumber than your average mathematician, because they use pre-written code that makes what they do trivial and/or very weak on the foundations of their craft.

Can you be a "genius" at programming (high IQ and creative) but suck at math?

They are fine for something few thousand lines big, you don't need architecture for that kind of stuff and most of the time you don't need anything more complex. But if you need something complex that spans millions lines of code and is expected to work for years I don't think they are the right people. Maybe my experience is limited, but I've seen one project like that done by physicists (radar stuff) and it was a huge fuckpile of undecipherable mess that wasn't even under a version control. Thank God I didn't have to work with it.

The problem is that a good programmer is not one that has perfect abstract thinking or gut feeling for constructing the perfect algorithm.
Programming is mostly about solving problems in a quick manner, using usually ready-made frameworks as bricks, and making them maintainable with best practices in order for the house of cards to not collapse.
The best skills for a programmer are a constant desire to leave your comfort zone, a thick skin and good time management. Especially in the product and enterprise environments you don't even need to be that smart, sometimes it even gets in the way because you start to doubt why are you doing this purposeless software at all.
Source : at one of the companies I worked in there was a really bright guy with a heckload of experience. He also reads about physics, astronomics etc and can contribute nicely to Veeky Forums related conversations. At one point he told me that it was some months ago (after 15 years of professional programming) that he had to look up a more complex algorithm. And it was solving a dependency graph. He said that for these 15 years the problems were pretty trivial, and there is always a library that solves your problem, so you just end up duct-taping and testing it.
There was a really nice bog post called something like "Programming is not solving puzzles. It's about solving problems. Real world problems (usually of other people). It's sad for a mathy type

Most of the webapps and software don't live to be that large. For some 5-10% of the software this is a must. But for the other 90/5
it doesn't really matter

Who are examples of computer geniuses?

Yes, I was arguing on "complex software" point, that is, those 5% where your ability to design and write clean, concise, understandable code actually matters.

Define "computer genius". Someone who is in the theoretical aspects of Computer Science like type theory, formal languages, compiler theory, graph theory and others (so he's a mathematician), a good programmer or what?

any of those things or someone that knows their shit inside out and creates something new that creates a paradigm shift in computer science

If you have put very little time and effort into learning math, sure.

Mathematicians are far more intellectual than programmers.

Yes, because programming doesn't involve hard or advanced mathematics.

both are problem solving. does it fucking matter.

Well at least math's problems are more abstract and don't involve shouting customers and support communication

>more abstract
all problem solving is abstract

only about 1 or 2 people in the world are solving any real math problems at any given time so it's a pretty fucking pointless question. genius isn't limited to 1 in 7 billion.

I would say Linus is not comparable to your average programmer. I would say he is more intellectual than your average mathematician.

Depends on what youre programming. The cocktail party problem was solved using exceptionally complex algorithms.

Programming is more about data and mathematics is more algorithms.
Generally programmers care less about one single function and mathematicians don't care about the data going in the function.

I wouldn't call programmers who come up algorithms that turn a O(n2) into a O(n log n) programmers. I'd call them mathematicians who just happened to be programmers.
You definitely have to be smarter to be a good mathematicians than a programmer.

I as programmer have to hold a much larger structure in my head. It's all about how multiple functions interact and data flows between them. At that point I'm not really thinking about individual function, they're just black boxes where data goes in and comes out.

And when I do dive into a single function I'm thinking about how I can remove memory latency. Or count the clock cycles of individual operations (eg (x * 0.5) is faster than (x / 2), can I use SIMD instructions here?) or maybe I refactor an operation and cache its results and reuse it.
Memory latency is one of the biggest limiting factors for computing these days. You're got these massive supercomputers taking up an entire building with thousands of cpus yet they have to communicate with was is basically ethernet.
programming is all about data. If the data changes the algorithm changes.

programming and math does not have to be mutually exclusive.

average web monkey is not comparable to a top rate computer scientist

Dijkstra is an example of a computer scientist genius, he is well beyond code monkeys

And Dijkstra never used the term "programmer" in relation to code monkeys. For him it was something more dignified and closer to the original meaning.

top rate answer. i recently became interested in computer science and the part that interest me the most is discrete mathematics. i can't explain why, but i find it the most interesting aspect of cs i've came across yet.


I am reading a book over the break on discrete math and doing problems from the chapters as i do. the sections on graph theory, complexity theory and algorithms is so intellectually enriching.

i took a programming course last semester and plan to implement the algorithms as i learn about them. i dont know where my 'niche' in computer science lies as i'm not exactly interested in the same sort of stuff as my classmates.

itt ppl dont know the difference between programming and engineering

agreed. from my understanding he was against the 'compile and see what it does' approach. instead he wanted to mathematically and formally reason about programs. i read he came up with shortest path algorithm in his head, because he didn't like writing things down and wanted to keep his thoughts elegant and simple. he was a mathematician that liked programming as mentioned

>he was against the 'compile and see what it does'
Yeah. If I remember correctly, he gave the students their excercises in a language he specifically designed and made sure that no actual compiler/interpreter was developed.

I want to answer the question, but to me this is not reasonable. Possible yes, but I do not see a possible answer.

It seems reasonable that one would be exceptional in both and many more fields: in basic understanding and in general. Both excelling in theory and in practical (esp in the practical and relevant fields). Most people are "impractical"; unless you consider runners/high-heels in snow storms or staring at a phone crossing streets to be practical in the long term (unless suicide by vehicle is one's goal, which certainly would align with the recent run on suicides).

It's unimportant to me WHO IS SMARTEST: I wish only that whoever this is would get doing whatever can be done about all the horrors happening to people around the world. Thank you in advance and can you go faster.

I did note that all the computer, math and science was meaningless to my ego without "emotional intelligence": which is likely why reading dozens of self-help books is far harder than reading the same number of computer-related books that have no social, emotional or spiritual component.

> What's more funny is, if one needs a really complex software you don't go around searching for a programmer. You get a mathematician/physicists on the job. They will have more experience dealing with that stuff. Heck even a biologist might.

Was it serious or bait? What do you think it's a complex software? The one that solves integrals by trapezoid rule? kek

People on this board suffer from Dunning-Kruger effect severely. Mathematicians and physicists study only their own field, but in this board they act like they're specialist in everything. Please, don't embarrass yourself. You can't build a complex software or be expert in it if you don't even know what a data structure is or just took an Intro to Programming course.

Mathematicians suck at programming. Between hundreds of single letter variables, zero comments or best practices in pretty much anything, their program will cache line ping pong its way to the result on a single core.

> I wouldn't call programmers who come up algorithms that turn a O(n2) into a O(n log n) programmers. I'd call them mathematicians who just happened to be programmers.

Why not? A programmer doesn't necessarily need to be a "code monkey". Generally programmers who care more about algorithm work at universities or companies that develop libraries, compilers, programming languages, and other tools for other programmers.

I think it's pretty much accepted that to be a "computer genius" or a "genius programmer" you need to have very high productivity.

on the other hand a genius mathematician or a genius computer scientist doesn't necessarily need to think very speedily as long as they solve an important problem no one else has, or come up with a very useful algorithm no one else has done yet.

Mathematicians also suck at swimming. Most can't even tread water.

Swimming Science majors are the best!

Wow another IQ threat, how smart and original, I bet you're all double math & CS majors.

sage

anything worth making does

>mfw programmers think they know what hard math is

Mathematicians are good at memorizing numbers and patterns

Programmers are good at memorizing language and patterns

Donald Knuth
Dennis Ritchie

>he thinks math is all about numbers

Well it's not about cornflakes is it?

IQ doesn't matter, you sperg.

>tfw I'm a CS/EE major but still has a big interest in math and stuff
>tfw nobody I know bother commenting their code

>try to find a code on fluid dynamics as methods in the paper were vague and it wasn't obvious how to actually implement them
>find it on one of the site of one of the author
>mfw
Now I understand why nobody writes the actual code in the articles and almost never gives access to it.

Math is just integration and pattern matching.
CS is where is all the cool stuff.

None. A mathematician is a programmer and a programmer is a mathematician:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry–Howard_correspondence

>i dont know where my 'niche' in computer science lies as i'm not exactly interested in the same sort of stuff as my classmates.
You have already found your niche since in my experience most of the compsci students are mathematically handicapped. Which sucks, as theoretical computer science is pretty awesome. If you like discrete, maybe take some math classes. Focus on theoretical classes within your major. You can always learn about the codemonkey aspects later.

Freshman cs student spotted

Thanks for your well-written reply. I'll take every higher level/theoretical course that I can then.

Every day I am reading this book chapter by chapter and doing all associated problems sets that I can. It's teaching me the fundamentals of discrete mathematics and I'm eating this up. The proofs are the most exciting thing. I love the abstractions and high level reasoning.

Kind of sucks when I go to class and no one finds this interesting (as we both mentioned) and instead they want to talk some shit about programming something uninteresting.

>Kind of sucks when I go to class and no one finds this interesting (as we both mentioned) and instead they want to talk some shit about programming something uninteresting.
This will pass in higher level classes, especially in math oriented ones or courses from the math department. In those its sink or swim. If they dont want to learn the material and would rather talk about developing another thirteen in a dozen Android app they will flunk right out. Prospects are way better in that regard if you stay on this track.

Okay excellent, thanks again.Glad to know anons like you are on this board.

>Glad to know anons like you are on this board.
Np, but I dont know if you mean this like I am a cs student interested in math. I am a pure maths student with a minor in cs.

I like that you are able to relate to me and pointed me in the right direction. Titles, degrees, majors is irrelevant to me. It's more about what your aptitude and capabilities are and we share similar interest in pure mathematics abstracting away from programming specifics/implementations. I am about to go back to reading/doing problems, haha. Literally only shit I want to do between semesters. I find this way more interesting than anything else.

Ah I get it. Good luck!

Thanks!