First, note that Needham’s book Visual Complex Analysis is not interactive. It’s just a book with slightly more pictures and more geometrically motivated explanations than most books have.
Personally I don’t think it’s ideal to use as an only book for a complex analysis course, but I found it very helpful for crystalizing my intuition/thinking about the subject. I would recommend every university math student try reading it, especially after going through a traditional course. (Also recommended is Wegert’s book Visual Complex Functions, but definitely not as a primary text.)
Finally, I suspect switching primary books is only going to work well if the professor makes a commitment to teaching using the same explanations. If the book goes about the subject in a completely different way than the lectures, I can well imagine students working homework sets on a short deadline may get confused.
Personally I don’t think it’s ideal to use as an only book for a complex analysis course, but I found it very helpful for crystalizing my intuition/thinking about the subject. I would recommend every university math student try reading it, especially after going through a traditional course. (Also recommended is Wegert’s book Visual Complex Functions, but definitely not as a primary text.)
Finally, I suspect switching primary books is only going to work well if the professor makes a commitment to teaching using the same explanations. If the book goes about the subject in a completely different way than the lectures, I can well imagine students working homework sets on a short deadline may get confused.