The Math Every Programmer Needs
summary
Claim: discrete math (Boolean algebra, combinatorics, graph theory) is the most practically useful CS class for day-to-day Rails work. Concrete tools: use truth tables and De Morgan’s laws to simplify or catch broken conditionals, count states (2 × 3 = 6) to find missing tests when only four exist, and draw dependency graphs to see which lets run. Build an adapter (strangler fig pattern) to break cycles and ship each change incrementally; it works and prevents big-bang deploys.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Why math matters to programmers
- 1:06Discrete math is most useful
- 2:07Unnecessary conditionals and Booleans
- 5:58Truth tables for complex code
- 9:13Fixing conditionals with de Morgan's
- 14:16Combinatorics for test coverage
- 17:31Set theory and Venn diagrams
- 18:57Dependency graphs for testing
- 24:14Graph theory for task breakdown
- 27:25Breaking cycles in graphs
- 32:40Discrete math tools for devs
- 33:12Q&A
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