Well... yeah. I mean, I might be wrong, but my default assumption is that when people on HN ask about learning math, unless they explicitly say otherwise, they are mainly interested in maths from an applied viewpoint. That is to say, I think most such inquiries are rooted in a basis of "I want to learn the math require to DO 'x'" where x might be "machine learning" or "circuit analysis" or whatever, as opposed to "I want to become a mathematician and advance the overall state of mathematics as a field."
I say that at least in part because of an assumption that people who want to become mathematicians per-se are probably asking their questions on Mathoverflow or whatever, and not HN.
EDIT: to be fair the specific sub-thread we're in here does contain this, which I guess justifies taking a "pure mathematics" position in this part of the overall discussion.
Are probability and statistics not part of a regular mathematics curriculum?
Still though, this seems to be a general issue with any maths related discussion on HN. It seems like a lot of people are commenting from a position of assuming that the initial question was based on an interest in pure / theoretical maths and the "I want to become a mathematician" idea. And I am somewhat skeptical that that is normally what's intended by the person asking the initial question.
Well... yeah. I mean, I might be wrong, but my default assumption is that when people on HN ask about learning math, unless they explicitly say otherwise, they are mainly interested in maths from an applied viewpoint. That is to say, I think most such inquiries are rooted in a basis of "I want to learn the math require to DO 'x'" where x might be "machine learning" or "circuit analysis" or whatever, as opposed to "I want to become a mathematician and advance the overall state of mathematics as a field."
I say that at least in part because of an assumption that people who want to become mathematicians per-se are probably asking their questions on Mathoverflow or whatever, and not HN.
EDIT: to be fair the specific sub-thread we're in here does contain this, which I guess justifies taking a "pure mathematics" position in this part of the overall discussion.
Are probability and statistics not part of a regular mathematics curriculum?
Still though, this seems to be a general issue with any maths related discussion on HN. It seems like a lot of people are commenting from a position of assuming that the initial question was based on an interest in pure / theoretical maths and the "I want to become a mathematician" idea. And I am somewhat skeptical that that is normally what's intended by the person asking the initial question.