"Knowing even a little of the right kinds of math can enable you do write some pretty interesting programs that would otherwise be too hard."
(one of the Yegge quotes in the article)
I think this nails it.
It's a Blub thing. Jeff sees little use for Math because he does not know of any mathematical solutions for the problems he encounters. But...how can he think of a mathematical solution for a problem if he doesn't know very much Math?
Google, of course, relentlessly applies Math to everything they possibly can. I think that has worked out rather well for them. The flip side is that they might lose a good designer occasionally with good subjective judgment about hard to quantify things.
"It's a Blub thing" nails it even better, IMO. PageRank, MapReduce, the Amazon recommendation algorithm, clustering algorithms, .... inventing those required a solid knowledge of and comfort with mathematics.
Of course, strictly speaking this doesn't mean that mathematics is necessary to do great work. Other qualities - say a good understanding of community (think Flickr), or psychology (Facebook), or design (37Signals) - can be equally useful. But, yeah, that post has "Blub" written all over it.
But doesn't that quote at the same time draw the very distinction between math and programming that Jeff is talking about?
"Knowing some math can enable you to write some programs" - two separate activities, one benefiting the other. So, as a thought experiment, a non-mathematically inclined programmer with strong engineering / design aesthetics who implements an algorithm that has been prescribed by a mathematically inclined person may often produce a much better result than the mathematically inclined person would on their own.
Programming is related to and benefits from mathematics, but it is not only mathematics. It brings a whole range of skills into play.
(one of the Yegge quotes in the article)
I think this nails it.
It's a Blub thing. Jeff sees little use for Math because he does not know of any mathematical solutions for the problems he encounters. But...how can he think of a mathematical solution for a problem if he doesn't know very much Math?
Google, of course, relentlessly applies Math to everything they possibly can. I think that has worked out rather well for them. The flip side is that they might lose a good designer occasionally with good subjective judgment about hard to quantify things.