Introduction

Many people think that to be a good programmer, you need to be "good at math". This is not necessarily the case. Being good at math is often equated to being good at arithmetic (able to perform mathematical operations such as add, subtract, multiply, divide numbers). While this skill is important and very very useful, the far more important skill is to understand what these operators do and when you should apply the math.

Programming isn't about becoming a human calculator (though it does help). Instead, the far more useful skill is to knowing what operator to apply in different situations. You can let the computer do the math.. its faster and more accurate at it than you can ever be. The key for you is to know what operator to use. This section looks at problems that have to do with using mathematical opertors. Data types that you learned about in the previous section will also play an important role as the operators work differently depending on the data type.