While this explanation is certainly much clearer than what I remember of high school maths, I still have a pretty tough time following the formula examples.
When I see A(x) = ax, I'm not entirely sure how to read it.
Is A meant to be a function that accepts x? If so, why is the equivalent expression a * x? Is it supposed to be implied that function A also has some hidden value "a" that is going to be multiplied by the supplied value? Is this notation specific to multiplication, to this expression, or what?
Positing that something is 'intuitive' when it depends so much on additional contextual knowledge seems ever so slightly disingenuous as best, and slightly harmful at worst; it can make the reader feel as though they must be dumb for not understanding this 'intuitive' material.
I do acknowledge that this is linear algebra, and if one doesn't have a really solid grasp of notation of regular algebra it is likely to go over their heads, but the practical explanations (such as the slope rise/run example) are quite clear and relatively simple to follow; it follows that a simple explanation of the notation might be helpful too.
The particular example might be confusing because the same letter is used twice with different capitalization. There is no direct relation between them.
> Is A meant to be a function that accepts x?
Yes.
> If so, why is the equivalent expression a * x?
Because that how A(x) is defined.
>Is it supposed to be implied that function A also has some hidden value "a" that is going to be multiplied by the supplied value?
Yes, it's an unspecified constant (a, b, c... are used to denote constants by convention), so you can really calculate A(x) for supplied values of x yet until the constant 'a' is specified.
> Is this notation specific to multiplication, to this expression, or what?
No. Functions might be defined using any expression. For example
A(x) = b^x
is a valid function as well (again, we have an unspecified constant). Just don't expect to encounter it in an introductory course in linear algebra (since it would deal mostly with linear functions).
Eliot Fisk has done a this relatively recently (~2015) with the Bach cello suites. Although they aren't improvised, they are re-arranged to take advantage of the fact that one can play more notes simultaneously on the guitar — to me they sound like warmer lute arrangements with some modern voicings. Definitely different than the arrangements I play.
I went to Dev Bootcamp in 2012. I was self taught beforehand, and had done a little bit of contracting work.
They focused pretty heavily on soft skills, like communication and pairing, and also somewhat on generic software construction ideas, on thinking through a problem and breaking it down into its component pieces. The curriculum used JS and Rails, although I didn’t feel that I had much more than a surface familiarity of either by the end of the cohort.
I think that, in general, if a bootcamp has a decent focus on software construction and doesn't totally fall down on teaching you the technical stuff, you’ll probably be prepared to work, at least, as a junior dev. But, you can't just rely on a bootcamp. You really have to spend a lot of time (like, a ton of time) learning on your own, writing code and reading code others have written.
Since then, I’ve been working steadily as a mostly front-end and sometimes full-stack developer.
My cohort was a little weird, people went on to do other stuff, like start their own bootcamps. But, I believe most of the people who wanted to be devs are still doing just that!
> My cohort was a little weird, people went on to do other stuff, like start their own bootcamps
I think that's really funny about the first ~3 DBC cohorts. A few grads of those first cohorts went on to start App Academy, Hack Reactor, and Hackbright Academy (I think) and others like it.
well back in 2012 was literally the first time a code bootcamp had been done. I think because of that, a lot of smart people saw you could take this business model and get started really cheaply and it could be huge, which is was/is.
If you look at the early cohorts of DBC, anyone of those people could have learned to program on their own or already was. I think a lot of smart risk takers saw a huge opportunity that was wide open and ran with it.
It does seem that using glass aggregate is effective, perhaps not as a primary building material but an ancillary one. This wikipedia article is not amazing but seems to give a passable overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_recycling. Having said that,
the company in question has run similar environmental programs in the past so it's probably mostly marketing.
When I see A(x) = ax, I'm not entirely sure how to read it.
Is A meant to be a function that accepts x? If so, why is the equivalent expression a * x? Is it supposed to be implied that function A also has some hidden value "a" that is going to be multiplied by the supplied value? Is this notation specific to multiplication, to this expression, or what?
Positing that something is 'intuitive' when it depends so much on additional contextual knowledge seems ever so slightly disingenuous as best, and slightly harmful at worst; it can make the reader feel as though they must be dumb for not understanding this 'intuitive' material.
I do acknowledge that this is linear algebra, and if one doesn't have a really solid grasp of notation of regular algebra it is likely to go over their heads, but the practical explanations (such as the slope rise/run example) are quite clear and relatively simple to follow; it follows that a simple explanation of the notation might be helpful too.