Baby Rudin, despite the somewhat patronizing name, is a second analysis text. There are many things that should have explanations that he expects you to already know. Swallow your pride and start with Abbott. You'll thank me later.
Now here's what I really think: I don't know your situation, but the odds are better than even that you should forget about it entirely. Doubly so if you're out of school. The bizarre math pride held by college kids (I did Math 55! I took a class with Stephen Wolfram's kid! I did all the exercises in Hartshorne! I proved X at age Y!) is real fucking stupid, coming from someone who badly wanted it. Your academic career or lack thereof will be determined about 90% by the people around you. It may piss you off, but you'll find it to be the same bitter truth I did.
My question was more rhetorical and for _synchronicity's_ sake than anything; I wanted to see what sort of replies would pop out.
As a recreational student, I've already committed to this text, difficulty be damned. I am no stranger to intellectual masochism. Nor do I care one iota for an "academic career," only for an understanding of results that were taken for granted in my prior CS mathematics undergraduate education at UWaterloo, which involved a few years of formal proof.
Would that I could have finished said undergraduate program, but tuition is expensive, and being rendered homeless partway through a CS program certainly complicates the financing, especially absent the monetary privileges afforded to one of a more affluent upbringing.
I appreciate the elitist and somewhat exclusionary language, though, despite admitted lack of knowledge regarding my situation.
I used Rudin in school. I got the highest grade in my class that included several future PhDs and professors. It's an old, not very good pedagogical book. It's a useful reference, if you are living in the pre+Internet, pre color-illustration, mid 20th century.
I learned analysis mainly from the guidance of my amazing professor (a postdoc who was an enthusiastic caring, clear communicator).
Like most textbooks, Rudin it has focused exercises, examples to build intuition, and proofs with little steps removed, not free-range problems. Thebanswe to a problem is based on the 20 previous pages in the text.
How to Solve It is like advice for solvimg a jigsaw puzzle (edges first, sort by shape and color and texture, ...)
It is for solving problems after you've learned a whole year(s) of material, and don't know which of your knowledge contains the pieces of the answer. It's a way of searching through your knowledge and evaluating which pieces are useful for the problem at hand, and how they fit together.
You're right, I'm sorry. I took my frustrations out on you. Funny, I was also homeless in the middle of undergrad. I don't know what real analysis has to do with CS, except as a pre-pre-prerequisite to boring old ML math, but it's not my place. Good luck.
