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I picked up this book, wasn't a huge fan. The idea is great: teach mathematics in a way a computer programmer would understand. But the title is misleading. T

I picked up this book, wasn't a huge fan. The idea is great: teach mathematics in a way a computer programmer would understand. But the title is misleading. The premise that this book will teach you maths using your already existing programming knowledge as a metaphor to build against is false. It is literally a programmer introducing you to mathematics. Not an introduction to mathematics using programming as a foundation. The title is catchy. The book had no editor.

xenihn 7y ago
I recommend you check out the minireference No Bullshit books. https://minireference.com/ https://minireference.com/ I own both. They're not aimed specifically at programmers, which I don't see as a downside.
- hackworks 7y ago
  Thank you for the link. I am at a juncture where I need to relearn some of the basics to help my higher school going daughter. The book on math and physics was exactly something I was looking for. I would also like to get my hands on Resnick and Halliday books that I studied back in India during 11th and 12th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentals_of_Physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentals_of_Physics
crimsonalucard 7y ago
I think what he's trying to convey necessitates such an introduction of mathematics. He's trying to convey the true nature of mathematics rather than the "applied mathematics" most programmers/people are familiar with. Such an introduction requires conceptual and foundational understanding over a full blown computational application which will likely hinder understanding.
hackermailman 7y ago
The book assumes you are already a programmer, then in most chapters it begins with a comparison of programming definitions vs math definitions, sometimes will model mathematics in java code, but for most of the chapters the programming content and examples disappear and it just becomes a math text, which for me was fine. The title should have probably been changed to something like 'A Programmer's Guide to Calculus and Linear Algebra' to avoid confusion. I hope there is a second version, where an editor mercilessly omits a lot of the decorative medium-esque blog text in some of the intros, and cleans up the jacket description or the title to prevent more bad reviews on Amazon and the like ("I thought this would teach me how to pass interviews! zero stars!"). The best part of this book is the 'culture of mathematics', where he is handing you grad school advice like how you should be reading a math text by writing your own examples whenever a definition is dropped in the book.

xenihn 7y ago

I recommend you check out the minireference No Bullshit books. https://minireference.com/ https://minireference.com/ I own both. They're not aimed specifically at programmers, which I don't see as a downside.

hackworks 7y ago
Thank you for the link. I am at a juncture where I need to relearn some of the basics to help my higher school going daughter. The book on math and physics was exactly something I was looking for. I would also like to get my hands on Resnick and Halliday books that I studied back in India during 11th and 12th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentals_of_Physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentals_of_Physics

crimsonalucard 7y ago

I think what he's trying to convey necessitates such an introduction of mathematics. He's trying to convey the true nature of mathematics rather than the "applied mathematics" most programmers/people are familiar with. Such an introduction requires conceptual and foundational understanding over a full blown computational application which will likely hinder understanding.

hackermailman 7y ago

The book assumes you are already a programmer, then in most chapters it begins with a comparison of programming definitions vs math definitions, sometimes will model mathematics in java code, but for most of the chapters the programming content and examples disappear and it just becomes a math text, which for me was fine. The title should have probably been changed to something like 'A Programmer's Guide to Calculus and Linear Algebra' to avoid confusion. I hope there is a second version, where an editor mercilessly omits a lot of the decorative medium-esque blog text in some of the intros, and cleans up the jacket description or the title to prevent more bad reviews on Amazon and the like ("I thought this would teach me how to pass interviews! zero stars!"). The best part of this book is the 'culture of mathematics', where he is handing you grad school advice like how you should be reading a math text by writing your own examples whenever a definition is dropped in the book.