Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (2014)
To me, this is about &quot;mathematical maturity&quot;.<p>My observation is that many programmers, especially those who have come of age by working in startups, tend to value ability and sometimes experience over formal education. This is a result, I believe, of noticing that they can outperform many people who have a classical education, and also seeing that many of the people to whom they look up also do not have much in the way of formal education.<p>However, I truly believe that Mathematics is a discipline that is very hard to engage with outside of formal education - or at least nobody has really found a great model for doing so yet.<p>Learning Mathematics in a classical, structured way really does change the way you think. I notice a substantial difference even between those of my colleagues who entered industry straight after their Masters or even Bachelors, and those who completed Doctorates or even held postdoctoral positions.<p>In my opinion, it is this lack of mathematical maturity that makes the switch from general programming to scientific programming more challenging than the converse.