[bit-101]

Author of the original article here. I feel your pain, but again, it's just a different set of conventions. Mathematicians are used to f(x) = ... kind of notation. Once you get used to it, it makes total sense. That particular one I got used to ages ago. f(x) is the same as a function in your code. It takes and argument, x, and returns some value.

Often specific symbols have implicit meanings, like theta θ is pretty commonly used for some angle, r is often used to mean a radius. So you'll often see something like "r sin θ" with no explanation. At first it's meaningless, but once you know the conventions, it's crystal clear. It's considered so basic, that nobody would waste the space explaining it. Same is if you're reading something about code and something says "const float x = 0.1" or something. The author is probably not going to go into an explanation of what a const or a float is or what x means. You're expected to know.

So what I like about the book is that helps someone without knowledge of all these conventions to begin to understand them.

[m34]

Thanks for taking the time to write about the book. As someone who had a hard time applying their school-taught knowledge about vectors and matrices when trying to understand OpenGL and Direct3D back in the early days ("why isn’t there a proper 'camera' object I can use") I really appreciate when people make an effort to offer alternative POVs to get deeper into topics they might not be familiar with.

Sometimes the right kind of intuition is all it needs to make it click. Sometimes it's that tiny bit of knowledge one is missing to get the whole picture and suddenly everything makes sense.

(Btw I think we might have met ages ago at a conference or two in Cologne)

[bit-101]

Ah yes, Beyond Tellerand. That was a good time!

[icelandicmoss]

I really clicked with this part of your article, for the first part of my undergrad maths modules I had been automatically trying to connect these symbols with some global definition and getting in a muddle. I still remember the combination feeling of outrage + sudden realisation when the penny dropped that they were just "making it up as they went along"! (sort of)

[everyone]

Perhaps the difference is that for programming you could internet search for "C# const" or "C# float" for example, and find the documentation or even easy to understand tutorials explaining what they mean.

Whereas for math it does not seem to be the same. There is no documentation, and no-one ever seems to explain those basics online. Eg. this book is a pretty obscure pdf.