{"id":116,"date":"2017-08-14T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T09:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/larrybuffaloboy.com\/?p=116"},"modified":"2017-08-14T09:00:56","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T09:00:56","slug":"algebra-basics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/larrybuffaloboy.com\/index.php\/2017\/08\/14\/algebra-basics\/","title":{"rendered":"Algebra Basics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This might be a bit revealing, but I barely know my basic math! I didn&#8217;t realize how bad it was until recently trying to solve some basic issues with my loans and interest calculations. Even with a calculator I was having trouble remembering some basic mathematical functions. Seeing as how I work with code every day, I know that math is very important. I don&#8217;t necessarily use math everyday, nor do I believe it to be a requirement for programming but I know if I did have those skills I could be that much better at what I do. Not only that, but it would give me the tools to think through tougher issues.<\/p>\n<p>That is why I decided to go back and learn my foundations. I made a list of the most useful math subjects I can think of that would be directly applicable to my programming profession:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Algebra<\/li>\n<li>Geometry<\/li>\n<li>Pre-Algebra<\/li>\n<li>Trigonometry<\/li>\n<li>Probability Theory<\/li>\n<li>Discrete Math<\/li>\n<li>Statistics<\/li>\n<li>Linear Algebra<\/li>\n<li>Information Theory<\/li>\n<li>Algorithms<\/li>\n<li>Mathematical Logic<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That is just the start. I know the rabbit hole goes deeper. I do want to avoid learning any math that will not directly apply to my day to day, but who knows, I could just get really into it. With everything I do, I try to start off with small chunks. I don&#8217;t want to kill myself trying to learn every math subject in a short amount of time, I still need to keep up with learning languages and frameworks, but at least I have a path to follow.<\/p>\n<p>First I will do a test. I want to complete Khan Academy&#8217;s &#8220;Algebra Basics&#8221; course. Currently I am almost done with &#8216;Foundations&#8217;, surprisingly I do not remember how to do this stuff. Multiplying by 2 digits, multiplying\/dividing decimals, dealing with fractions are tough because I have been using a calculator for so long! I haven&#8217;t even got into the algebra yet! My theory is that getting this basic algebra foundation back will be super helpful and really level me up since algebra is definitely a building block of programming. I am curious to see how completing this course will help me, I will be keeping note. So far though, I feel much more confident that I can do some basic math that I couldn&#8217;t have done without a calculator a month ago.<\/p>\n<p>Learning and completing these courses Is really showing me how math is so simple when breaking it down into its core components. Every symbol, formula and calculation is a representation of something else, a process. I know that my time spent programming will help me get through this course a lot faster. Everything can be broken down into other forms. I plan on using the Feynman technique throughout this process in order to really cement my learning and be able to call on it at a later time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This might be a bit revealing, but I barely know my basic math! I didn&#8217;t realize how bad it was until recently trying to solve some basic issues with my loans and interest calculations. Even with a calculator I was having trouble remembering some basic mathematical functions. Seeing as how I work with code every [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrybuffaloboy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrybuffaloboy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrybuffaloboy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrybuffaloboy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrybuffaloboy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/larrybuffaloboy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrybuffaloboy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrybuffaloboy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrybuffaloboy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}