41–50 of 223 posts
I just realize I fear math because the educational system I grew up in was violent (like beating kids for getting a quiz wrong wtf).
It was only through psilocybin mushrooms did I discover math and calculus again.
Jeremy, been reading your blog for years. Just wanted to say thanks for the wealth of readable intros to interesting mathematics.
I am basically trying to understand the formulas in machine learning papers, will this book help achieve improvements in speed? I just realize I fear math because the educational system I grew up in was violent (like beating kids for getting a quiz wrong wtf). It was only through psilocybin mushrooms did I discover math and calculus again.
Do the exercises have solutions? The most annoying things about math books is the lack of solutions. A beginner absolutely needs to know whether or not their solutions are correct. The “the reader should know if they are correct” logic doesn’t apply here. A beginner could easily have faulty logic and fool themselves into thinking their solutions are correct. I usually don’t buy math books without solutions if I’m sel…
Do the exercises have solutions? The most annoying things about math books is the lack of solutions. A beginner absolutely needs to know whether or not their solutions are correct. The “the reader should know if they are correct” logic doesn’t apply here. A beginner could easily have faulty logic and fool themselves into thinking their solutions are correct. I usually don’t buy math books without solutions if I’m sel…
Don't know how the first part would work with Math.
The 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 ju…
Looking back, that first year was brutal with each successive year getting way easier and way more fun.
* 19 pages of droning before you start with something concrete. Much talk talk talk about your experiences before you get to the point. I can't put into words how much it frustrates me when I'm expecting to read something interesting and the author takes 3 paragraphs talking about nothing (usually with lots of overexcited exclamation marks).
[sorry if I am being blunt, but it's how I feel]
* Imprecise definitions. This defeats the purpose of learning mathematics. Like Leslie Lamport says, rigour in mathematics is not a hurdle or a chore one must endure, it's the whole point of learning the damn thing. You give imprecise definitions, and then obscure it even further with neverending paragraphs of confusing explanations. This to me kills the whole pedagogical value the book might have. Here is a rule of thumb that in my experience applies well to almost everything in mathematics: the simpler your explanation is, the better. Your goal is to explain a concept as succintly and beautifully as possible. This exposes the idea behind it. A long and meandering explanation only serves to obscure the idea behind. Less is more.
* Attempting to shoe-horn programming "lingo" into mathematics. Sometimes, the best way to explain something, even to programmers themselves, is not to force an awkward analogy with Java programming. EDIT: 5 pages later: "The best way to think about this is like testing software." oh boy...
* The graph in e.g. page 8 (20 of the pdf) is terribly typeset. The axes text is way too small to read and in a font that doesn't match the rest of the content.
It'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…
I'm sorry if this isn't your intent but the way you structured your comment comes off as very condescending. Aside from that, I'm also skeptical that the frequency in which these maths apply to practical, commercial programming is really that high. Im not anti math or something. I just think the practical value gets way over sold by some people. And sometimes it feels like it's because of the dislike of "those who ca…