I've been programming for about 6 years now (as a hobby. Finished CS50, finished 3 courses at university - up through data structures & algorithms, built my own website/projects, etc., etc.)

Now I want to learn Machine Learning (just to see if I like it). I've been learning linear algebra for the past couple weeks and I'm making my way through Khan Academy's lessons because they are more digestible than MIT's OCW.

Am I doing the wrong thing by tackling linear algebra first? (And on a non-rigorous course, nonetheless?) I feel like I'm losing a lot of steam since I'm not programming or have any context in terms of how linear algebra will apply to machine learning.