I think Karpathy's microgpt blogpost is the best in this genre in a long time, and it also includes a multi layer perceptron. It's a step up in the hierarchy, so reading both is helpful, of course.

https://karpathy.github.io/2026/02/12/microgpt/

I'm not sure if I'd like to declare a best. There are so many different approaches and I think their ability to inform is cumulative,

I like the ability of this article to do the tiny training runs in browser. It makes the point of a bias clear. Too many tutorials get sucked into the proof of zero times anything is zero. Everyone knows that. What you should show is where that mstters in the problem at hand.

3blue1brown does one of the best depictions of why we need an activation function.

Karpathy's videos are a little tougher for a beginner to grasp, but excel at solving a complete problem. I knew all of the theory behind what it takes to make micrograd before I made my own by following the video, but what you get from doing it can't be understated.

It's hard to describe but it what you learn is more of a feel than pure knowledge. It gives you a better sense of knowing when the principles apply in other circumstances.

Perhaps it's the distinction of understanding how springs and gears work, then looking at a clock and understanding how the gears and springs move the hands. There's still more needed if you want to make a clock. And that stuff is what let's you also make a wind up toy.

I can't agree more with you, It took me many days to understand the "By we need bias?" I know maths, I know programming, but why was not clear. I love 3blue1brown.