# Why there is no Hitchhiker's Guide to Mathematics for Programmers

DevFeed: [Why there is no Hitchhiker's Guide to Mathematics for Programmers](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/why-there-is-no-hitchhiker-s-guide-to-mathematics-for-programmers-40302.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.jeremykun.com/2013/02/08/why-there-is-no-hitchhikers-guide-to-mathematics-for-programmers/>)

Published: 2013-02-08T11:24:53Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Jeremy Kun](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/jeremy-kun.md>)

Topics: [Mathematics](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/mathematics.md>), [Programming](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/programming.md>), [C++](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/c-plus-plus.md>), [Functional programming](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/functional-programming.md>), [Java](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/java.md>), [Test-driven development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/tdd.md>)

Tags: [c-plus-plus](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/c-plus-plus.md>), [depth-first-search](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/depth-first-search.md>), [error](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/error.md>), [functional-programming](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/functional-programming.md>), [java](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/java.md>), [mathematics](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mathematics.md>), [test](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/test.md>), [type-coercion](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/type-coercion.md>)

## AI overview

The article reflects on the author's development as a programmer and on the difficulty of learning mathematics for programming. It uses experiences with Java, C++, functional programming, recursive search, testing, and a segmentation fault to illustrate how programming mistakes can arise from design misunderstandings rather than syntax alone.

## Source excerpt

For those who aren't regular readers: as a followup to this post, there are four posts detailing the basic four methods of proof, with intentions to detail some more advanced proof techniques in the future. You can find them on this blog's primers page. Do you really want to get better at mathematics? Remember when you first learned how to program? I do. I spent two years experimenting with Java programs on my own in high school.