51–60 of 242 posts
Working my way up to calculus for the first time in my life, at nearly 40 years old. I've always hated math :( When I was a kid, they always told me math would be super useful, especially if I liked computers. Well, 20+ years of a dev career later, I still have never used anything more than basic arithmetic and rudimentary algebra (to calculate responsive component sizes). But with web dev jobs going the way of the h…
Rust. There's certainly a lot of interesting things happening with Rust but I'm one or two problems away from deciding that Rust isn't a viable replacement for the situations where I use C.
Would you mind expanding on this? I’ve had learning Rust on the back burner for a while and still default to cpp when I need to get lower level
What I wanted from Rust was basically a strongly-typed C and more modern tooling. I'm open to more checking than that, depending on what cost it has.
What I'm getting is strong typing and more modern tooling--cargo, for example, is excellent. But the borrow checker is extremely invasive, and `unsafe` doesn't actually make it less invasive. There are a number of cases where I still haven't figured out how to get the compiler to not complain about the lack of a `.clone()`. Borrow semantics are... pretty good, as it's basically enforcing a pattern I use frequently anyway, but the exceptions to that pattern are critical and working around the borrow checker causes more problems than it solves. It's possible I just don't know how to make "the Rust way" more workable, but if that's the case I am having a hard time finding how what "the Rust way" is for the things I'm trying to do.
That said, I can see how Rust is a great tool for what it was originally intended for (writing a browser). That's just not what I'm doing.
Working my way up to calculus for the first time in my life, at nearly 40 years old. I've always hated math :( When I was a kid, they always told me math would be super useful, especially if I liked computers. Well, 20+ years of a dev career later, I still have never used anything more than basic arithmetic and rudimentary algebra (to calculate responsive component sizes). But with web dev jobs going the way of the h…
What resources are you using to learn calculus? I am on a similar boat
But mostly, I'm learning from ChatGPT. You can enter (or take a picture of) any problem and ask it to break it down step by step and it does that very well, and explains it better than most resources I've found. There are some OK YouTube or KhanAcademy videos too, but overall I prefer ChatGPT for its higher signal to noise ratio.
At home I'll usually ask ChatGPT to explain the first one of a problem type, then try to do it again on my own and double-check it against the posted answers. For subsequent problems, I'll do it myself first (pen and paper or iPad), check it for correctness, and then ask ChatGPT for a breakdown if I screw up. I can usually tell it the mistake I made (i.e. how come I got X in step Y) and it can often correctly guess and explain where I went wrong.
Some examples (keep in mind that I'm still working up to calc, so still in pre-calc right now!):
* Breaking down the quadratic formula and explaining imaginary numbers: https://chat.openai.com/share/b267e954-fa0b-46ea-8fd6-11f71a...
* Explaining properties of logs: https://chat.openai.com/share/01d79b4f-81b4-46b3-9767-be93b7...
* e and natural logs: https://chat.openai.com/share/fbb3f957-ed6f-4c1a-af95-917d0e...
* Word problems: https://chat.openai.com/share/502f7a91-9c2c-4c74-834a-5c791a...
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Overall, I find this method of learning math (by rote memorization and parroting) very unsatisfying, and I'm unable to retain most of it in long-term memory. A few days after I learn anything I already forget how to do it. I ended up with an A in the class mostly just cramming the night before + morning of, using ChatGPT and class notes to refresh myself before the tests.
But IMO it's a terrible way to learn (at least for me) and part of why I hate math. I never really learn the whys and wherefores of anything, it's just a bunch of magic shortcuts and black-box algorithms that I have to memorize and re-use without any actual understanding. It's the educational equivalent of solving every problem with someone else's function/library :( I have no idea why anything works the way it does, only that I must remember it and re-use it exactly.
If anyone has a better approach to learning and retaining this stuff, I'm all ears!
Apropos of the other HN article on the elder mathematician who credits his success by studying the simple things until he understands them really, really well, I'm practicing drawing boxes in any/every orientation in 3D space. This includes drawing two boxes connected by a common edge - imagine a box with a lid the same size as the box itself, slightly opened.
For me this is profoundly difficult to visualize. I've taken to learning the basics of Blender just so I can create these various boxes accurately to use as reference material. It's been slow going but the progress is tangible and the process is fun.
Primarily options trading and golf. Multi-turn conversation and knowledge system implementation techniques on the side.
Longtime data engineer - web apps in vanilla HTML/CSS/JS with Node - and some fun with ncurses in C++. Copilot is helping me out a bit but I’m having fun!
Hey, you're like my evil twin! Longtime web dev here who always wanted to learn more data engineering. HTML/CSS/JS is fun and creative to some degree, but kinda abstract. Data engineers get to work with real-world phenomena! What prompted the interest in web stuff?
1 - I feel like more bespoke interfaces could be amazingly useful in the data world.
2 - Data engineering doesn’t really get me building creatively.
3 - Getting 3 languages to play ball (and that’s front-end only) sounds crazy challenging.
Data projects are nightmares but it is good exposure to the messiness of the real world. Have you had a chance to dig into DE much yet?
Welding. I'm looking forward to making a few sculptures that we can also use in our garden, as well as some Frankenbikes, though that might be a longer-term project - I don't want to spend money on it, so I'm hoping to source all of my parts from the trash - so far, I'm up to four frames, and my marriage is still intact!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What resources are you using to learn calculus? I am on a similar boat
I'm taking a class at the local community college. It's OK, just some class notes and an e-textbook that I never bother to read. The pedagogy is much as I remember it, the teacher going through the problems on a whiteboard and expecting everyone to rote-memorize things. But mostly, I'm learning from ChatGPT. You can enter (or take a picture of) any problem and ask it to break it down step by step and it does that ver…
In terms of courses I am looking at Khan Academy but also https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-01sc-single-variable-calculus... (haven't started so I cant speak for quality)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm taking a class at the local community college. It's OK, just some class notes and an e-textbook that I never bother to read. The pedagogy is much as I remember it, the teacher going through the problems on a whiteboard and expecting everyone to rote-memorize things. But mostly, I'm learning from ChatGPT. You can enter (or take a picture of) any problem and ask it to break it down step by step and it does that ver…
I've been considering paying for an LLM to augment my learning, for when I get stuck or can't figure something out. In terms of courses I am looking at Khan Academy but also https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-01sc-single-variable-calculus... (haven't started so I cant speak for quality)
I tried MIT OCW but found the videos too long and tedious... it's hard for me to just sit still and listen to videos like that for hours =/ I chose an in-person math class on purpose just to have that real community feel and a live teacher, but YMMV... probably many would prefer the online or async versions instead.