[douche]

Math as taught in US high schools has very little to do with anything of real value. It's basically an SAT prep program, to push people through to calculus.

I could very nearly count on a railway brakeman's fingers the number of times that high school math has been an asset in my software career. The three years of computer programming electives I took were wildly more useful - and actually taught me geometry...

[mfoy_]

I would argue that well-taught geometry and such will make learning programming muuuch easier. Linear algebra has a lot of concepts that translate quite neatly to programming. Set theory, functions, etc. Formal logic is also a great asset for understanding branching logic.

Then again, learning how to program probably also makes learning those concepts easier too, as it goes both ways...

[fluxquanta]

Not to disagree with the idea of their importance, but linear algebra, set theory, and formal logic are things I had not even heard of in a relatively impoverished public high school, much less had courses on.

Hell, I had to take the AP Calculus AB twice -- not because I did poorly the first time, but because there was no other courses for me to take and I didn't want to go a year without any math before college.