JayCee

Introduction and Setup

This series is written to guide you through building your own linear algebra functionality from scratch.

Each section of the series focuses on a small, contained piece of functionality. By the end, you'll have the foundation of a lightweight, modular linear algebra library that you can adapt for your own projects. You'll also gain a better understanding of the mathematics behind it.

The examples are written in Rust, but the concepts are language-agnostic. If you're comfortable in another language, you can follow along just as easily.

What You'll Need

Before getting started, make sure you have the following:

A recent version of Rust installed

You can check with:
```
rustc --version
```
If it's not installed, visit: https://rustup.rs
A text editor or IDE that supports Rust

VS Code with the rust-analyzer extension is a good option.
Basic familiarity with programming concepts and some comfort with Rust syntax

You don't need to be an expert --- we'll go step by step.

Project Setup

Create a new Rust project to follow along:

cargo new linear_algebra_from_scratch
cd linear_algebra_from_scratch

This will generate a new folder with a basic Cargo.toml and src/main.rs.

You can either implement everything directly in main.rs or create separate modules as the project grows.

For example:

src/
├── main.rs
└── math/
    ├── vec2.rs
    ├── vec3.rs
    └── matrix.rs

We'll expand on this structure as we move through the guides.

How to Follow the Series

Each guide introduces one concept at a time --- starting simple and building complexity gradually. You'll find three main sections in each:

Concepts / Mathematical Background An explanation of the underlying math and how it's represented programmatically.
Implementation A series of tasks to write the code yourself.
Solutions A complete set of solutions showing one way to implement the concept.

You're encouraged to write and test your own code before checking the solution.There's no single "right" way to implement these ideas, and exploring different approaches is part of the learning process.

Next Steps

When you're ready, continue to the first real task: implementing a 2D vector type.

This will cover construction, basic arithmetic, and a few common operations used throughout linear algebra.

Continue to the next guide →