I'd argue that reading academic papers on DL is hardly the only or even a good way to get into DL for an average Joe Hacker. "... if you're not willing to read

I'd argue that reading academic papers on DL is hardly the only or even a good way to get into DL for an average Joe Hacker. "... if you're not willing to read a paper with BASIC CALCULUS ... then I'm not sure machine learning is the right place for you" is the exclusion attitude. It does not have to be that way. I'm glad there are projects like http://www.fast.ai/ http://www.fast.ai/ which aim to change that.