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Why does RTFM not apply to mathematics dependencies?
by hansvm 5y ago
Why does RTFM not apply to mathematics dependencies?
- layer8 5y agoBecause there usually isn’t anything resembling an actual manual.
- Jensson 5y agoSure there is, read these and you will understand most math papers people here struggle with: https://mathblog.com/mathematics-books/ https://mathblog.com/mathematics-books/ Of course you still wont be able to understand most math papers written by pure mathematicians, but it should be fine for whatever you need in CS. I know all the topics on that page, it is just a very fleshed out math major.
- kazinator 5y agoThat's "read all the fine manuals", not "read the fine manual". In the end you might eventually read all of them, but it's not the efficient thing now.
- Jensson 5y agoBut why are you reading research papers with math without having studied math? If you want to understand them fully then you need to do the relevant courses, people spend years learning these things. You don't have to read them all, just the branch relevant to the paper.
- kazinator 5y ago> But why are you reading research papers with math without having studied math? I.e. why are you knocking on this gate, if you're not worthy of passage?
- Jensson 5y agoIf I try to read a program written by you without having learned the language, would you expect me to understand everything? Why aren't you explaining the symbols? That is the same thing. Learn the fundamentals of a paper before reading the paper, that is just common sense.
- kazinator 5y agoIf math were like code: the program relies on macros that are not defined in the program. Those who have the author's previous two programs loaded in the image don't notice any problem.
- layer8 5y agoWe are talking about nonstandard notation that is often specific to the author or to a limited research subfield, for which there are no standard courses or books that would explain the notation. You’d need to take a specific course by someone in the respective research community. Or sometimes, as noted above, it’s possible to follow back a dozen or more papers to retrace the idiosyncrasies in an almost archaeological manner.
- Jensson 5y ago> We are talking about nonstandard notation that is often specific to the author or to a limited research subfield Most people here talk about stuff you learn in undergrad, not some esoteric beyond grad math here.
- kazinator 5y agoThe dependencies are not manuals. This could in fact be avoided if citation #1 were a Fine Manual.