Thanks for the effort. I purchased the e-book and will start working through it immediately. I'll let you know what I think.
A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics
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Re: A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics
#12Hmm, the "first few pages" end just before the "meat" begins. From the table of contents, there seem to be short prose sections inteleaved with the teaching sections. I hoped to see an example of the teaching section, not the prose.
Yeah, I should update that to have the full first chapter.
Re: A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics
#13I've been wanting to peek into mathematics and an "introduction" is exactly what I need. Thank you for sharing this.
This was the book that Richard Feynman used to teach himself calculus when he was 10 or 11 as I recall:
https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Practical-Man-J-Thompson-ebo...
Re: A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics
#14As someone who works as a programmer but wasn’t super interested in mathematics, I’ve found this blog to be a fantastic read time and time again. I’d highly recommend going through Jeremy’s previous posts if this is your first time seeing his site on here.
If this topic piques your interest I would also recommend Mathematics for Computer Science: https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring17/mcs.pdf
Re: A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics
#15The description got me excited, but looking at the table of contents, the level is ultra basic - appears to roughly correspond to first year of a cs degree.
Still potentially useful for people who got into programming by some path that doesn't include a CS degree.
Re: A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics
#16The description got me excited, but looking at the table of contents, the level is ultra basic - appears to roughly correspond to first year of a cs degree.
Certainly more than just the first year, and I don't think the majority of CS degrees require multivariable calc or any group theory.
I do wish there were more of a preview than just the TOC to see how novel the examples are and how much it helps with intuition for these mathematical concepts beyond what you would learn in a plain CS sequence. That would be my reason for buying the book and I wouldn't write it off just because the list of topics covers the first two years of college math.
Re: A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics
#17What's provided currently at [1] doesn't provide the reader with any impression of the teaching style or quality/quantity of visual aids.
I'm very likely to buy a hard copy of such a book, but not unless I can do the equivalent of flipping through it like I would in a book store.
Consider changing the preview instead to a scattered sampling of some of your proudest pages.
Re: A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics
#18It's good to have something that lowers the bar for programmers so they could learn themselves some math without much fear. Knowing math is very important if you are a coder - and not just linear algebra: knowing a formula, for example, might let you do certain things in constant rather than linear time or, perhaps, reduce the cost of the iteration. Unfortunately, too many of those who can call themselves programmers…
That's really me to a "tee". I just never had a teacher in high school who really understood more than basic math, and I went to work instead of college afterwards.
I expect I'll have to work at it to follow this book but that's why I need something like this. And I need to spend some time with Python too so I'm looking forward to digging into it.
Re: A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics
#19I've been wanting to peek into mathematics and an "introduction" is exactly what I need. Thank you for sharing this.
This was the book that Richard Feynman used to teach himself calculus when he was 10 or 11 as I recall: https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Practical-Man-J-Thompson-ebo...
Thank you!
Re: A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics
#20minor suggestion: make it easier to see the table of contents. A survey book leaves uncertain exactly what is included.