Not OP, but I'd like to add the term “learning complexity reduction” which relates closely to “pedagogy”.
Reflecting on my experience as a CS graduate with a strong interest in math (though not very advanced knowledge), I realize I would have benefited from a more intuitive, black-box approach when first engaging with complex topics, rather than diving straight into their intricacies.
I think this is kinda like the C++ vs Python as your first language question. C++ is better if you want to really learn programming but it’s harder to get to the magic of your first real program. Python gets people making programs sooner but it’s harder to build good habits and get that deep understanding. It depends what your goals are. There’s stuff like this for math but it’s kinda like trying to learn math from 3Blue1Brown videos. They sure help, but you eventually need the rigor
I'm not suggesting that you can fully learn math in this way. My point is that the approach you take can boost your confidence and motivate you to progress further. Of course, some people don’t need that kind of push or entry point.
I've seen other great examples of this from good professors. For instance, in probability and statistics courses, we would validate our results by combining theoretical concepts with simple Monte Carlo simulations to ensure they matched.
Sure, I don't disagree. But there's a lot of trash and not a lot of gold. It is hard to find the gold and to make the problem even worse, what's gold is trash to others. Worse than that, what may be trash to you at one point in time may be gold at another, and vise versa. It's unfortunate, but I think this is true in any learning process. There's lots of great programming articles on Medium, but you're more likely to learn garbage, and even more likely to not know you are.