A self declared mathematician that can't tell you what the answer to 4x + 7 = 19 is, is not going to be a good mathematician even though it's generally not the

A self declared mathematician that can't tell you what the answer to 4x + 7 = 19 is, is not going to be a good mathematician even though it's generally not the case that solving trivial algebraic problems makes up any meaningful chunk of a mathematicians daily work. I think your point would be fair for more complex problems, but getting the max of a list is something anybody of a logical mind could easily do even without knowing any formal programming language. And for those that do know a formal programming language it comes down to the most incredibly trivial basics of a language - comparison/variable/iteration. In other words a self declared software developer who can't tell you how to get the max of a list is not going to be a good software developer.