What programming language(s) are useful for a student who wants to major in mathematics?

Question

I am a sophomore in college. I want to gear my education toward a career that involves higher mathematics, finance (not accounting), and maybe even market analysis. I am still deciding what exactly I want to do, but I have interest in these subjects. I also think it would be beneficial for me to learn a programming language. Especially in this day and age. What programming language is suitable for someone like me? I studied a wee bit of Java in high school but struggled.

Please advise.

Answer 1

If you want a computer programming language to learn that may be related to your field, you can look into fortran. My understanding is that this is a language that offers the most in terms of scientific calculations and mathematic support.

I cannot tell you from experience how difficult it is to learn, and I am not even sure that it is still being used extensively in the scientific community. But you could investigate and talk to professors and see.

There is also C++ that is extensively used in many companies today and offers some good features, and is not that difficult to learn.

However, if you are going into finance or market analysis, I don't think these type of programming languages will be of benefit to you. What would be better to learn is to familiarize yourself with Microsoft Excel macro programming, and possibly Visual Basic or "Visual Basic for Access (VBA)".

Much of the financial and market analysis involves using established tools such as Excel or Access to analyze the data that is collected to look for trends. When you learn how to use pivot tables, statistical tools, and the financial wizards in Excel, and how to prepare SQL queries in Access, this may help you much more than knowing how to do a recursive loop in C.

Answer 2

Way back (some years ago) a language called FORTRAN used to be choice. I would learn macro programming in spreadsheets... C and progeny is not for Math majors - though if you learn how to use C you can probably perform the best computations with any given computer architecture. Regardless, with the Internet you can get true computing power - by accessing multiple computers simultaneously to perform complex computations. Java of course can help you exploit that computing power cross-platform (you can use any computer with any architecture and any Operating System). Of course, the obvious drawback with JAVA is the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) which slows things down a bit. As such, maybe C with a Networking Library. I remember CORBA some time ago (six years ago) - don't know if it's still around but I believe it was a C library which allowed you to harness the power of the Internet in a very intimate way (as opposed to JAVA).. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corba

Answer 3

If you struggled in Java you will not want to try C or C++. They are more complex and more difficult to learn!

I would recommend learning Matlab. It is a math program with its own programming language that is extremely useful to know if you are working with complex math. You can work with a lot of complex mathematical concepts a lot easier than in Java or C(++). You can likely get a copy for free or cheap through your school. I would ask some of your math professors.

As a bonus, learning Matlab will also give you an easy introduction to some programming topics that will make learning other languages easier.

Answer 4

I was a physics major back when I started college in 1969. I went on to get a master's and a Ph.D. in it. I was actually a run-of-the mill physicist, not really outstanding in any way. Here's what I've done over the years: Help design the engines for the space shuttle, Defined the semiconductors that are now used in all microprocesors, worked with medical isotopes, analyzed air pollution transport by using x-rays, taught at a university, worked on the B-2 bomber project, and designed operating systems for mainframe computers. I'm now a retired millionaire. By the way, did you know that 40 percent of the medical college admission test (MCAT) is physics? Lots of physicists go on to be medical doctors.

Answer 5

Matlab is your best option. It's relatively simple to learn, but it still maintains a lot of the constructs of more general languages. It has direct math/engineering applications that make it very useful for quickly developing solutions in those fields. All of the engineering and majors at my University learn it.

Just learning the general ideas of programming is what you really need. When it comes to what you use in the field (finance, etc.) it's really going to depend on what you're specifically doing.

Answer 6

If you struggled in java, you may dislike c++ or assembly language even more. I found visual basic easier. I heard python is very simple. There is also supposed to be a language called MATLAB for numerical analysis

Answer 7

Python (http://python.org/ ) is quite useful. It's a high level language, so it's easier to express abstract logical concepts. It's syntactically powerful. It's quite fast.

More importantly, it has good support for mathematics. In built, it supports complex numbers and long/scientific numbers. It also has NumPy/SciPy packages that extend mathematical and scientific functionality.

Answer 8

C# and/or VB.NET are both nice. Easier to work with than Java and much easier than C/C++, but also quite powerful. The only downside is that, for now, it's Windows only. The CLR doesn't yet work in UNIX/Mac (as far as I know -- that could have changed by now).

The downside to Python is that it's interpreted and therefore relatively slow. Also, it is not strongly typed so it's harder to work with and tougher to find bugs when compiling.

Answer 9

C++

Answer 10

C++