AprilPhoenix's comments

I think the real question is: why C++ is better for not defaulting to an automatic GC that does heap compaction? Think of what would happen to all those pthreads. :P

I think the issue isn’t resources, it’s having people around you to keep you going and help you when you get stuck. Especially if you are working full time as a grown up.

We ought to form a group here for people attempting to do this. Not just with math either.

I can only speak for myself. My life is in the gutter, and for a variety of different factors, when and if that changes is out of my hands to an abnormal extent. I don’t have friends or anything to alleviate my current isolation with, and until I get a job again, little prospect of gaining any.

I don’t want to focus on the past, because the thought of the future, of making up for and crushing that sucky past, was what kept me going. But what else is there to focus on? Focusing on the future isn’t really an option when you are in this situation. I am not even going to have the money to go to the gym anymore soon. I might be living on the street by then. Focusing exclusively on the present will mean breaking myself mentally staring at the screen, simultaneously praying for and dreading the next interview that comes. If I break down now, I eliminate any prospect of escape. So I have to do whatever is necessary to prevent that, however counterproductive in other areas it is.

I'm OK with being ignored. I'm not OK with being powerless.

One thing I'd recommend is tying in the calculus you've learned with the language of differential forms. It really gives you a lot more power in visualizing what is going on (line integral-you aren't just projecting that dot product in the integral onto an "infinitesimally small element", it is a map that does something simple but profound), and also extends your reach with visualization.

Also, if you are interested in more sophisticated ways of capturing quantum physics, geometric algebra is really cool.

I can’t speak about successful projects yet, but I have begun to make more progress in the past few weeks than I have in the rest of my life. Here’s the thing: if you have ADHD, don’t fight it, work with it. Have several different projects going on and rapid shift between them when you feel yourself getting tired. A problem here, a paragraph here, it adds up. This turns out to be much more useful as an adult at work than as a child at school because this allows you to do the job successfully in a way you can’t as a student.

Also, use the depth of your focus to your advantage in making connections and going deep. Again, helps improve stamina.

1) Sakurai and Dirac's textbooks on quantum mechanics.

2) Axler's book on linear algebra. That's when I started to think in terms of vectors as more than the typical "magnitude and direction" concept you are used to in UG physics. It took many years, but I'm finally beginning to apply this to more advanced topics.

3) Concurrency in Action, by Anthony Williams. The training in multithreading aside, that motivated a deeper interest in things like how caches worked or atomics for someone without a CS background like myself. I haven't finished Three Easy Pieces yet, to my eternal shame as I read this thread, but that might also be added on this list by the time I'm complete.

4) On the right-hemisphere side of the brain, books such as Christopher Clark's "Sleepwalkers", Jonathan Smele's treatment of the Russian Civil War, and Richard Thornton's "Odd Man Out" on the Korean War have been useful in teaching me to dig deeper than the standard narrative when looking at history. I'm looking forward to Christopher Goscha's book on Dien Bien Phu and James Howard-Johnston's recent drop on the great final war of classical antiquity in the 7th Century, in a similar vein: both are out, just haven't gotten the chance to digest them yet. Also, Plutarch's Parallel Lives. They aren't "history" in the sense that we know it, but they do teach you that, yes, the lives of famous ancient figures do have lessons that can and should apply to you.

If you have friends, use them. Avoid HR at all costs. Steer the conversations of interviews to your technical interests and current projects and away from your past as much as possible. If a potential employer asks about the high turnover, don’t dismiss it: just make it clear that you WANT a stable job for a good few years, and that you’ve have a hard life that you’d rather not go into details about before immediately shifting back to impressing him about your knowledge on whatever the actual programming work is about. Make sure you have some other aspect of your life that is going forward, even if it just getting in shape, and keep it strictly segregated from the job hunt.

They are hiring the current you, not the past you. If you yourself are utterly convinced of this, you stand more of a chance of convincing others.

I’m in the same situation. It’s rough. Doing this job hunt constantly with no support and no money can wear you down to the point where you can’t even look at applications without feeling sick unless you are careful to make sure that it doesn’t block your mental rebound. I’ve got nothing but sympathy for you. If you ever want support, let me know. Practical help, can’t promise anything given my own desperate situation, but I can try to get you on some old recruiters radars or potentially an employer or two.

Pay me and I’ll help give you all the motivation you need. I’d be good. I have that Nietzsche experience, you see, of having been so isolated for so long that there’s little in the way of neuroticism, excuses, dodges, that I haven’t seen!

Seriously, though, what else do you like? I made the mistake of letting the process of searching for jobs destroy any love I had for programming. I’d imagine a ho-hum job can do that to a lesser degree. You can’t let them define it. Find out what you love, get immersed in that first: or find something new that sounds cool. Get your zest for learning and creating back. For me it is physics and mathematics, but for all I know, it could be sports bets or logistics in Djibouti. And then if there is a programming application, easy to incorporate that in.

Also, retaining childlike abilities to get excited about stuff might get you mocked, but it’ll keep you spry, and this tends to have a snowball effect elsewhere in life.

It would be awesome, but there’s a surfeit of material out there and these guys are doing it pro bono. Better to look at it as an entry point.

One thing I do is try to connect the concepts into textbooks I do have. Say I have an elementary proof about a cross product: try and tie that into the stuff about wedge products and exterior calculus I just learned about. Line integrals? Perfect opportunity to practice working with one-forms.

Another option for the mathematically inclined is to pause and prove everything if you feel you aren’t getting it good enough, or to build up your own visual picture from first principles as much as possible rather than memorizing the video’s presentation.

Poor documentation.

Get lost.

No, seriously, get lost. Go out for a walk somewhere remote, let your mental juices flow, and bring a pad of paper to write down whatever comes to mind. Your mind will naturally gravitate to what preoccupies you if you are up for it. Talk to yourself as you walk, visualise what you’ve got ahead. If what you have is a problem to solve, zoom in and look for entry points. No electronics, no phones, no interruptions whatsoever. Then when you get back into your normal life, try and flesh it out or implement it or whatever.

I don't need to post links. I've failed at everything I've ever done in my life, professional or otherwise. I'm broke as a result. This isn't hyperbole, and I'm sorry if it sounds melodramatic-I think the user handle should show my mentality, FWIW.

There are a lot of reasons why, but the one that is relevant to this thread is not grasping the following: not realizing that people who stand out in life are so adept at picking themselves up from failure, do it so rapidly and seamlessly, have had so much practice at doing it that you don't even recognize they do it.

Practice doing that. No matter how insignificant the task is. My threshold for failure now is not doing that, and not pushing myself in life tasks where it really matters to me personally. (Important to distinguish.) And I'm already seeing a difference.