Programming? But I'm terrible at math!

So is the author of this book! One of the biggest misunderstandings that nonprogrammers have about computer programming is that programming is some kind of math. It's not. It might look the same on the surface, and some of its style has been borrowed from mathematics for matters of convenience, but the whole underlying system is completely different.

That's not to say you won't be using any math in these lessons—you will. How much? You'll use addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and some very basic algebra (the kind you might remember from fifth grade). That's as complex as the math gets, and you don't have to any of that math yourself. You just need to know how to tell AS3.0 to do it for you. It's just like using a calculator.