[birdsareweird]

Insanity. 90% of linear algebra can be understood from graphically examining affine transforms. Doing visuals last is what leads people to conceive of matrix-vector multiplication as a set of meaningless dot products as opposed to just multiplying the basis vectors by the matching coordinate and adding them all up.

[bsaul]

I think you're missing the first step, which is, formalizing a problem using matrices and vectors in the first place.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but i can easily imagine that people have been solving those types of issues manualy for centuries before finding the "shortcut" or representing transforms using matrices and figuring the rules of matrix & vector multiplication.

Still, i think you're making a good point. So maybe the correct process would be : problem stating, naive "manual" solution, graphical representation and then matrice & vector formalizing ?

[marcosdumay]

Well, I guess every teacher ever lose the real first step, which is getting a problem to solve.

Once you need to make a basis change, or you need to discover a "natural basis", all of linear algebra becomes easy and very intuitive.