Martin Crownover

Two days a week, a friend/colleague and I have been working our way through a college-level computer science curriculum - to refine some of the rougher edges of the knowledge we've cobbled together over the years, and formalize/validate the rest. It's been fun so far, and at times, pretty challenging.

I've got a four-year degree, so college courses aren't exactly daunting. But the toughest parts have been when I've had to tap knowledge that's nearly faded away - such as the high school math I learned over 20 years ago.

Algebra and geometry are mostly there. I use many aspects of those in my design work and game development. But parts of them, like factoring polynomials, look familiar to me, but I can't remember any of the actual rules. Trigonometry was a blur back when I took it originally, and calculus... forget about it (in my case, literally)!

We're in the midst of a calculus course now, and while a lot of it makes sense and is sort of coming back to me, I always struggle when we have to go back and start factoring again. That stuff used to be second nature to me, but without need of it for a couple of decades, it's only faintly there. It feels like running into an old acquaintance and not remembering their name, even though you used to see that person every day. It's sort of a bummer.

Anyway, we're getting through it. There are so many good resources for learning this stuff online, which weren't around back when I learned it the first time, I've got no excuse not to know it. Just the eternal lack of time, I suppose.