This post confuses me. Why would code be simpler than the math notation? Both involve symbolic abstraction of basically the same complexity

i hate that we all got so frightened about math. it's genuinely fun to learn how it works when you're not being forced to in a school setting, which was just a fucking nightmare for no reason. i had this former navy DI lady teacher in gifted kid algebra [so already a year ahead] yell at me for asking questions; she wasn't going to 'hold my hand' thru the homework, which was quite literally her fucking job

You can reduce this readable code into one line of confusing python list comprehension that runs 100x slower!

The hard part of math isn't understanding esoteric symbols it's the theory behind it and it's application. Number theory will mindbreak almost all people.

Oh cool, I know who this person is, she did a couple of amazing videos on Bezier curves and splines

i still don't understand but thanks

When you study CompSci (depending on where IG) you tend to see them that way when trying to mathematically prove something about an algorithm. It's only really a good way of thinking if you're into coding, but I don't think a teacher for a non-coding related algebra class should show this, it can be really confusing for some people.

Maybe I'm crazy but they did teach me this in school. "This means so this operation until conditions are met".

People who are arguing that one way of expressing these concepts is easier to learn/understand than the other are missing the whole point. Mathematical notation was not designed to teach students how to do math or explain how to design algorithms. It was invented to communicate precise, abstract ideas concisely between mathematicians who already understand what the symbols mean.

Mathematicians require a notation that has the flexibility to manipulate mathematical objects/symbols in a way that naturally emphasizes their properties and relationships. Often they don't even care whether the objects they're studying are even computable or have a numerical representation. They just need them to have certain properties so that they can be manipulated appropriately.

Discrete sums are a rare example of when the mathematical notation overlaps with the description of an algorithm for computing its value (and the overlap is not even complete; infinite sums are easily represented in math notation but are practically uncomputable when implemented naively). Every other advanced mathematical concept puts a premium on ease of symbol manipulation over computability: integrals, derivatives, matrix multiplication, abstract algebra, etc.

TL;DR math notation is complex because its intended audience is people who already understand it, want maximum flexibility of symbol manipulation, and historically didn't really care about practical computation.

Just notational difference other than presence of mutation.. How is it harder to understand 3 + 6 + 9 + ... + 3n means compared to the for loop? Is repeated addition hard to grasp?

The education system creates scarcity of knowledge to increase the profit of investment and spending, everything complex can be broken down into simple forms.