I wouldn't go that far. Algebra is more or less used as a trivial operation in engineering (along arithmetic and calculus)... as something you "just do", and it's a fairly direct application.

A lot of the stuff you learn in architecture isn't actually going to be directly applicable, but the general concept of systems design is something that underlies a lot of stuff you'll work on regardless of your field.

This post was edited by irimi on Jan 30 2013 01:07pm

I think if you want to disregard the fact that one is arithmetic and one is conceptual and theory based, they are pretty relative examples. I do not believe many successful computer scientists got anywhere without knowing the architecture and functions of the systems you use throughout your career.

I see where you are coming from, though.

But are they practical for programmers?

Maybe not so much Computer Architecture, but both are useful.

Circuits are important (and also pretty fun!).

Recursion is a must.

I am in the architecture course at my campus and it has been pretty interesting so far (at least the for the time when my professor is actually on topic...)

Some light talk about half/full adders and registers and how all that stuff works kinda makes me want to take the assembly class more

Just a word of warning -- it is incredibly interesting/sexy when you first learn about it, but that particular aspect of CS appeals to a very specific part of the population. Like you (and probably many others), I became super excited/interested about low-level work after my first architecture course... until I realized how tedious the work actually is.

To quote one of my favorite profs - "Life's too short to program in assembly."

This post was edited by irimi on Feb 1 2013 03:45pm

haha that is a great quote.

Yeah, I think I talk about it but I kind of jokingly tell myself that will never happen, lol. Now the advanced Java web development class, THAT sounds pretty useful....

As a guy who never took a single CS class and now works in software dev, I cannot stress the importance of this point enough. knowing nothing (or VERY little) about the architecture probably set me back at least 6 months at my first job.

my class so far:

Lectures = learning about memory hierarchies and access times and tradeoffs between using certain types of memory

in the book = random shit we dont cover in lecture which is confusing as hell (like the math behind processor benchmark tests.....)