openframeworks/ofBook — pull request #48 by mikewesthad (2014-04-02 02:25:54+00:00)
Title: Comments for @OmerShapira on That Math Chapter

Hey @OmerShapira, in this PR, I made a bunch of in-line suggestions along with some minor spelling fixes.

It's a really great chapter so far - fairly easy to follow (even with your //TODOs missing) and it covers solid ground very concisely.

You are clocking in at <20 pages at the moment, so I wouldn't worry about taking up too much space in the book. If anything, I'd say you've got extra room to let a few of the explanations of concepts expand (thesis-permitting, obviously).

Three general pieces of feedback that didn't make sense to just insert into the file:

First - many sections would benefit from an upfront description of practical applications to motivate the introduction of different concepts. These would just be quick sentences at the beginnings of sections, like with the concept of "change," you can then make animated motion; vectors allow us to more easily describe points or directions; etc. It just gives newbie readers something to hang on to as they get acquainted with the concepts.

Second - many sections would also benefit from small images, and you've already noted a few of them. Here are some additional ones: cubic function, taylor series expansion of a function, vector scaling/addition/rotation/dot, derivation of distance from Pythagorean in 2D+3D, diagram of matrix dot product, skewing and the order of operations of SRT. These don't need to be big graphics, so I think these all could be added while still keeping the chapter within the page limit. I get that it's mostly just a time constraint though. I think the addition of even a subset of these images would greatly open up the chapter for the more math averse readers.

Third - there are some page layout issues to be addressed at some point during copyediting. A few of your functions and equations run off the page in the PDF.

Again, I thought the chapter was very solid. The overall structure of the chapter - basic mapping to quadratics to vectors to matrices - positioned you well to tackle a bunch of concepts in a way that both accessible and concise (not things that always come together in math) . Finishing off the sections you marked with //TODOs and adding in some images will just make it that much more accessible.