And it seems to me that you learned the concept of functions through programming first but that there's not evidence that you couldn't have learned it from mathematics at first. Functions are a pretty easy concept, so I think it's pretty easy to introduce it from a variety of points of view. So I'm not sure the anecdote backs up any argument about learning programming makes mathematics easy.
I am of the opinion that programming can be used to explore and learn mathematical ideas and am a big proponent of that, but that is something different than "I know how to program so mathematics will be easy now".
Always wonder about this. Other than foundation of maths, the function abd calculus view … my wonder is about the data part of the maths. Not the process. Yes one can view matrix as a function but could it be data. One can real number line, complex or integer as data?
And it seems to me that you learned the concept of functions through programming first but that there's not evidence that you couldn't have learned it from mathematics at first. Functions are a pretty easy concept, so I think it's pretty easy to introduce it from a variety of points of view. So I'm not sure the anecdote backs up any argument about learning programming makes mathematics easy.
I am of the opinion that programming can be used to explore and learn mathematical ideas and am a big proponent of that, but that is something different than "I know how to program so mathematics will be easy now".