On: Why did we ever think a student's first programmin...

[sjg007]

It’s unfortunate that CS curriculums lean so heavily on math and proofs.

[rgoulter → sjg007]

I think it's worth distinguishing between "Computer Science" and "Programming".

One of the motivating examples in the OP is "conversational programmers". OP defines that as people who want to be able to have conversations about programming stuff, but won't program. -- For those people, sure, assuming heavy technical/math background when teaching programming isn't helpful.

But many topics in Computer Science heavily rely on applying math. (3D rendering, Computer Vision, Machine Learning).

[sjg007 → rgoulter]

This is no different than engineering.

[formerly_proven → sjg007]

Then study computer engineering instead of computer science.