Applied science, i.e. taking something from text book abstract and general to something specific is always extremely difficult. It's one thing to read about a nuclear reaction but a whole different thing to actually set one off.
To implement something you need to have a level of understanding of it that is way deeper than what is required to get a passing grade in your math class. The problem isn't mathematical notation or the programming language (I am quite competent in and have no quarrel with either).
I recently set out to implement Triple Exponential Smoothing (aka Holt-Winters method), but I didn't want to use someone else's code, I wanted to understand the algorithm so that I knew enough to compare various implementations and/or write my own. It took _months_. There is a lot of material on the subject, but it all disagrees ever so slightly on one thing or another, or skips over something essential. I don't think anyone or anything is to blame for this - that's just life.
To implement something you need to have a level of understanding of it that is way deeper than what is required to get a passing grade in your math class. The problem isn't mathematical notation or the programming language (I am quite competent in and have no quarrel with either).
I recently set out to implement Triple Exponential Smoothing (aka Holt-Winters method), but I didn't want to use someone else's code, I wanted to understand the algorithm so that I knew enough to compare various implementations and/or write my own. It took _months_. There is a lot of material on the subject, but it all disagrees ever so slightly on one thing or another, or skips over something essential. I don't think anyone or anything is to blame for this - that's just life.
You can read about it here, btw: http://grisha.org/blog/2016/01/29/triple-exponential-smoothi...