I suck at Math and I am a working professional in JavaScript. Kyle Simpson is also the Jesus of the JavaScript world 
Thereâs very little complex math in programming, more logical thinking and being able to break problems into tiny pieces.
Donât be discouraged, use ever doubter as fuel to the fire of getting where you want to be!
I have no degree, barely passed maths in high school and I am working for one of the worlds biggest software companies.
Obviously he doesnât know JS. I donât even think you have to be all that clever. You do have to stick to it. Someone told me that twenty years ago. Itâs the people that keep trying and fiddling, they learn how to code. Donât you worry, keep at it and youâll be fine. .
"You can learn anything.
For free. For everyone. Forever."
My math teacher used to say everything is easy once you understand it!
Just be happy that not everyone thinks like your bossâespecially people hiring programmers.
Rome was not build in a day & there is a reason most people take math courses in a certain order. Each step just builds on the last one. Most of us would not each a huge steak all in one huge bite- but eat one bite at a time.
Think about something you ARE very good at and try to think over the course of your life how many hours you spent learning, reading, playing, imagining, talking about that. Then compare that to the number of hours you have spent working on math & you will see that you are simply not giving yourself a fair comparison. If you spend that much time on math, you WILL become âgoodâ at it, by what ever definition you chose learn maths with.
Math is the same thing: it is not just one topic, but a language for describing things. Languages are learned best bit by bit, with lots of practice & repetition rather than trying to cram it all in in one day or on the weekends.
You donât NEED high level math to start learn programming. What it helps with is learning HOW to think about things and how to represent things in a way that can be used digitally.
The minute you convince yourself that you NEED to know math, you will find a way to do it. But it will help to define what you mean by âgood at mathâ. Good at math for a physicist may not have the same requirements as good at math for a programmer. Math for a web developer may not be the same as math need to write algorithms for the NY Stock exchange or for space vehicles.
Glad you brought this up- it reminds me to get back to my math work on Khan Academy, but here a few links I found helpful for getting over my âI am bad at mathâ issues:
https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-be-great-at-math
That guy has serious issues as a person.
But as to what he said, thats not correct at all.
The only time you need math while coding is if you are coding something that requires math.
What math do you need to create a web form that validates user input using React, send that data to an api endpoint and then saves it into a database.
What math do you need to try and decide how to style your web page to make it look user appealing.
There is software that requires math and software that doesnât. There are plenty of job opportunities for both.
Your boss is an idiot. I bet youâve suspected this before.
âIgnore the Naysayersâ (Tenet 4 of Arnold Schwarzeneggerâs 6 secrets to success)
I donât know your boss but I hate him already, he has never heard of growth mindset
Do not be discouraged! I have been a developer for 21 years, and if you can do the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, you will be just fine. Any formula you need to calculate something like compounding interest rates, or rate of growth/decay can easily be found through google, you can then put that in your code and the computer does all the work for you. Your boss doesnât know what he talking about. Have a great day!
Math is my enemy. I can do it when Iâm really interested in the topicâlike for acoustics or for optical designâbut if Iâm not into it, Iâll suck at it. Thanks for the Khan Academy tipâI should start that soon.
There is a laugh called âmarvelling.â Itâs a happy laugh of support. It doesnât sound any differently from any other sort of laugh really, but it exists. I use it. If I see a young employee studying and I made the statement about math, I would be trying to figure out that personâs intent. Imagine that youngster is you: If you answered me, like you answered your boss, Iâd laugh too, but happily. Iâd also answer something like, âthereâs your answerâ meaning - âyour intent and determination will eliminate any weakness in mathâ. That is, âyouâll succeed despite the odds.â Your answer is what you decide it to be. And a good boss would be happy about that.
It could well be that you have a mean boss, but be careful. Not everyoneâs dialect, or use of words, is the same as yours. You know your boss better than anyone else, I reckon, but you might be mistaking support for an attack.
I know someone who is a self taught programmer with just a high school degree and very little understanding of complex math or algorithms. In fact, Iâm better at algorithms (basic ones) than he is and Iâve only been doing this a couple of months.
His last yearâs salary? over 100k. Wonder what your boss would say about him.
Hereâs my opinion. The best skill a developer can have is to self teach. If you know what to do, but not how to do it, you can always read the docs or google for the answer. There will always be smarter people than you out there whoâve answered those questions, and are willing to answer more. Just look at the open source software scene, like ReactJs or AngularJs. Do you really think the vast numbers of developers using those frameworks and shipping product could have developed it themselves? As long as you get logic and discrete math, youâll do fine. But programming requires a specific type of mind and thatâs why he thinks itâs only for math geniuses.
As someone who worked in IT for 11 years before doing a coding bootcamp and becoming a web developer, the logic based troubleshooting skills you apply to complex IT issues are the most useful skills youâll use as a developer. When I left a successful career to become a developer many people told me not to and that I was making a mistake. Iâve proved them all wrong and am doing much better financially, and in satisfaction with my work, than I was before.
Learning math skills definitely will help you, but saying that you need to be insanely good at math is just silly. Most web devs that I know are NOT insanely good at math. Most of what I do requires nothing more than basic algebra, which you probably know well enough already, and if you donât can easily learn. I do data visualization, so sometimes I run into more complex math. It all depends on what you want to do, and you can learn the skills to get there. It may take you longer to learn how to code a game engine than someone who is a math genius, but that doesnât mean you canât do it.
Your boss has proven that he doesnât know what heâs talking about. Even if you donât become a professional dev, programming skills are useful in the IT world as well. Or you can combine that two and make the big bucks doing Devops.
The fact that you never felt discouraged in your time coding while self learning shows that you have what it takes to learn how to be a good developer. I was constantly discouraged while I was learning. I still sometimes find myself discouraged when tackling new material. You got this.
Donât let anyone get you down about your learning experience, or about what youâre learning or your skills⌠keep your head up and keep going 
The best thing is to practice, practice, practice and your successes in coding will only get sweeter 
Thatâs a little uncalled for, I think.
Besides, why would you need to be good at doing math if youâre good at making your computer do it for you?
Of course, that may require a little reading conceptually, but once you know what to code you can just⌠do it. Resources are everywhere and anything can be learned.
Itâs a little absurd, I wouldnât take it to heart.
This is a classic workplace ânegâ-style comment.
The subtext is, donât quit your day-job, Iâll need to look for another good hire
Never got past College Algebra. Been at this for about 20 years. Youâre never too old to learn <-- something your boss could stand to remember.
Donât let someoneâs opinion change your course. Math is useful for programming and can help make you a better programmer. I passed through math courses and didnât retain anything from my studies. I am now going back and relearning via Khan and MIT Online, because I have re-discovered an interest in math that I didnât have in college. Being good at math is not a prerequisite although understanding of math can help.
Iâm a bit tired because itâs late in my timezone, but he seems a bit myopic when it comes to development. Itâs a wide range of skills and being good at math is very ambiguous. I can subnet, know calculus, hexadecimal, statistics, etc. and it hasnât helped me be a good programmer. Itâs just different. Itâs the logic, but being good at math just isnât a prerequisite. Be well rounded, but Iâm sure Iâm better at math than a lot of developers that are way better than me at programming.
Yeah, I got one of those bosses. Totally non-technical, but he sure has an opinion about tech stuff. The really bad thing is he also makes decisions that affect my department without our input on things he has no knowledge of.
You donât need to be good at math to be a good developer. It doesnât hurt and a certain level of math competency is probably necessary since the skills that make people good at math, including logic and analysis, are some of the same that make learning programming easier. Either way, these are all skills that can be learned and developed.