No worries, as a self proclaimed youngster I didn't manage to understand Fourier in 2 days and never bothered again. Also had no other prior knowledge to algebra so maybe that's why I struggled. Never perceived algebra as useful in anything programming related, will continue to do so as most problems are solvable without it. I'll let the degree havers do all that stuff.

> Never perceived algebra as useful in anything programming related

Image, video, and audio processing and synthesis, compression algorithms, 2D and 3D graphics and geometry, physics simulation, not to mention the entire current AI boom that's nothing but linear algebra… yeah, definitely algebra isn't useful in anything programming related.

So you're a programmer but you've never assigned a number to a variable or written any math operations? Do you just do string translations or something?

You might find LLMs to be a useful crutch for this to an extent, although it's very easy to take the wrong turn and go off into the deep end. But as long as you keep forcefully connecting it back to practical reality, you can get progress out of it. And of course, never actually make it calculate.

Have I got a video for you.

gingerBill – Tools of the Trade – BSC 2025 https://youtu.be/YNtoDGS4uak

"Book learnin' didn't do me no good no how!"