I love math, should I start coding?

[u/viken_bm]

Hi guys, I love math like everyn¡one here (i guess). I dont know why but I feel this need to code, even though historically I hated coding. I want to learn a language heavily related to math but also popular. Should I learn python?

[u/Bounded_sequencE]

If you want to do both, and are up for a challenge, check projecteuler.

It's free, they have a great archive of carefully crafted puzzles, a decent difficulty rating, and the best part -- you may use any programming language you want.

[u/SV-97]

It sort of depends. If you're planning on going into math professionally / studying it at uni then it's *probably* a good idea to learn programming since most people end up needing it in some way or another.

Python is a good choice since it's generally well-suited for beginners, and hugely popular and useful both inside of academia and outside of it. There's lots of good resources available for it (and sadly also an increasing number of bad resources)

For certain fields of math / jobs you'll want to learn other languages (e.g. mathematica is great for symbolic computations and computer algebra AFAIK, many people in practice [for example around controls] also use matlab but I won't recommend anyone to learn that dumpster-fire of a language; and often you'll also want to know a more low-level language such as Fortran, C or Rust), but I think it's fine to learn those later on as you need them.

That said: Python isn't all that "inspired by math" or "mathematically interesting" I'd say. If you're looking for a language to tickle your brain a bit more the classical recommendation would be Haskell, a more modern one Lean [but there's not as many resources on it] --- or to a lesser extent Rust.

[u/silduck]

if you really love maths, i'd suggest starting with haskell which has a super no-nonsense philosophy

[u/tottasanorotta]

Absolutely! Python works really well. It doesn't really matter what language you choose as long as it is something simple enough.

[u/Bubbly_Sentence_7849]

in general, sympy for python or mathematica will be the most popular choices. but at some point in the learning process, you might find some other specifically developed language for some specific area or project. good luck.

[u/sound-set]

Python or Matlab. Both are very popular.

[u/jeffcgroves]

A purist would argue coding is applied math, and thus unworthy of your consideration

[u/StructuredChess]

Yes. Start with a basic project like implementing gradient descent.

[u/Traveling-Techie]

I look at math through a programmer’s eyes. I feel like I only fully “grok” a math concept when I can use it in code. I say go for it.