How to Read Mathematics
FTA :<p>&gt;&gt;&gt; One can now check that the next statement is true with a certain amount of essentially mechanical, though perhaps laborious, checking.  I, the author, could do it, but it would use up a large amount of space and perhaps not accomplish much, since it&#x27;d be best for you to go ahead and do the computation to clarify for yourself what&#x27;s going on here.  I promise that no new ideas are involved, though of course you might need to think a little in order to find just the right combination of good ideas to apply.<p>I hate that. When I program my computer, I specify all the steps to accomplish something. If it&#x27;s too verbose, then I abstract it in  a function.<p>I even add  comments to make sure that a human reader easily and completely understands what I do.<p>I do that because I want the computer and the human reader to be productive in their understanding of what I do. And because I want the human reader to see that it&#x27;s either elegant or just mechanical.<p>I&#x27;m not that pretentious to say &quot;hey, I&#x27;ve hidden a few details because if you are as smart as I am, then you&#x27;ll understand easily&quot;.<p>I had this when learning maths. As a student I was sometimes lost because I always thought maths were hard. Should I have had all the details, I&#x27;d seen it was indeed much easier than I thought and wouldn&#x27;t have been intimidated. Now, I&#x27;m older, and I know all of that and I&#x27;m much better at mathematics. But what a waste of time.<p>And the space argument, come one. Just put all the stuff in annexes and it&#x27;ll be fine.