This is why one of the most valuable uses of time for mathematicians and especially software engineers is to study the historical development of techniques and technologies. Understanding how matrices are a product of the quest for finding solutions to systems of linear equations gives you a much better idea for when and how to apply matrix techniques. Most math textbooks limit themselves to "The determinant is defined by ad-bc" which on its own is an almost completely useless fact to know outside of taking an exam.
Software engineering is much worse in terms of useless complications developed by people who don't know previous solutions (angular.js? Great! Have you ever heard of dataflow programming? Constraint satisfaction? Dynamic binding? No? No wonder angular is such a piece of shit).
Software engineering is much worse in terms of useless complications developed by people who don't know previous solutions (angular.js? Great! Have you ever heard of dataflow programming? Constraint satisfaction? Dynamic binding? No? No wonder angular is such a piece of shit).