Puzzles and the ability to program

When people ask me whether they need to know mathematics, physics or calculus to be good programmers, I always say not necessarily, but that you do need that basic math that ends up showing up in several situations. Be it functions, systems of equations, riddles and puzzles.

I even give the example of those little fruit riddles that used to show up all the time in family WhatsApp groups in Brazil. Games like these, visual tricks, where you have to do some arithmetic and go by trial and error, or even set up the system of linear equations.

Well, but that has been changing fast. I ended up landing on this tweet that Sérgio Lopes sent me, as usual, which raises an interesting point: developers don’t necessarily like very hard and complex problems, but rather puzzles where we can apply our experience, our logic and our repertoire. Like chess moves, like solving equations, like cracking a bug by going through the various possible combinations.

It happened especially in front-end, where patterns had to be followed to reach the polished result. Pixel perfect. And guess what? AI is very good at it. And it is hungry for these patterns, it knows them in depth and it really has more patience than we do.

All of this pushes problems up one level of complexity, which leaves some people, not only juniors, exposed. It’s an interesting moment for our field. I like to say that everything gets a little harder and a little more interesting.