I'm in a similar boat. I've bought three "teach yourself maths" books, and I'm just going through them, doing the problems with pen and paper, old school style.
Whether the knowledge it will cross over to coding is a different question, but I'm actually really enjoying it so far. In fairness, I've hardly ever needed any kind of maths skills when coding so far.
Ask HN: I suck at math, where to start?
151–154 of 154 posts
Re: Ask HN: I suck at math, where to start?
#152Re: Ask HN: I suck at math, where to start?
#153Check out this Farnam Street post - https://fs.blog/mathematicians-lament-2
I agree with this. I think that the way we teach math is a disservice to the kids. When you watch a talented mathematician's lecture you always see how relatable and intrinsically motivating it is. On the flip side, I think that when people write about math in scientific reports for example, they don't explain the math they use either.
Teaching by key-value pair (which is what far too many people default to) is a horrible way to teach
Concepts may need to be presented propositionally, but there [almost] always needs to be a "why" (even if the "why" isn't yet understood) paired with the "what" - the Pythagorean Theorem isn't just about memorizing 3-4-5 right triangles, it's about figuring out the shortest distance between two points, knowing how much fencing you need around your property, and on and on
Re: Ask HN: I suck at math, where to start?
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem for me is identifying where exactly in my mathematical fundamentals things fall apart (like with prime numbers, some basic arithmetic, geometry) that makes higher-level math a struggle conceptually. It's always felt like there were holes in my fundamentals. I suspect the only way to figure this out is to go back and do everything again either through Khan Academy or books. Does anyone else have this issue…
Try ALEKS. It's basically an online grind session that identifies which underlying concepts you've got wrong or haven't got, and builds you toward them organically. I recently used it to get myself sufficiently intimate with trigonometry that I don't have to stop and look things up all the time "just in case." It's not free but it works well: https://www.aleks.com
If you sign up for the EdX Precalc class https://learning.edx.org/course/course-v1:ASUx+MAT170x+2T201... they will let you use ALEKS for free.