I don’t understand why people frequently say this. While it’s true you can pay money for them, I’ve never spent a dime on reddit and have given out over 50 golds and have enough coins to give out a half dozen more. I don’t know what the mechanics are for earning the coins I have, all I can say is I haven’t paid for any of them yet I do have them, so it’s not true that when someone gives an award it was paid for with real money.
Yea that’s not explained better than a math teach. They just swapped notation common in math, for notation common in one specific programming language. it’s only easier for the audience who happens to be familiar with programming in general, and that language in particular.