Real-Life Math
Math can play a big role in any computer profession, as Gary Cohee and Jennifer Paschall can attest.
Cohee is a developer. "The amount of math you will work with depends heavily on what type of computer programs you are writing. If you are working on the space program, designing software that calculates satellite orbits, then you can bet that you will do a lot of advanced math all the time."
Cohee works in the health-care industry. The only math he has to do involves fairly simple calculations. "For the most part, a good algebra base is sufficient for most non-scientific programming tasks."
Systems architect Jennifer Paschall says that occasionally someone may ask for a simple report to be programmed that includes fields for expected payment, actual payment and variance.
"The actual payment is in the database, and the expected payment is a percentage of a fee. The variance would be the difference between expected and actual payment," Paschall explains.
You are to enter the variables for the code listed below, using the actual pay as $255. The expected payment is 85 percent of the actual pay. What would be the variance (or difference, including percentage) between the expected pay and actual payment?
Examples of programming code to determine these values are:
EXP = expected pay
ACT = actual pay
VAR = variance
SET EXP = ACT x PERCENT
This calculates the expected fee.
SET VAR = ACT - EXP
This calculates the variance.