I'd say it's important for the reason you mentioned: Many programming constructs and metaphors are either derived from mathematical concepts or a direct impleme

I'd say it's important for the reason you mentioned: Many programming constructs and metaphors are either derived from mathematical concepts or a direct implementation of these concepts. Good programmers without a formal maths education by and large probably just have a good intuitive grasp of these ideas. That said, a lot of the maths commonly taught at university isn't all that relevant for programming from a pragmatic point of view (and it isn't meant to be, given that computer science is about much more than just programming). Interestingly, the rather theoretical formal methods courses from my linguistics studies covered quite a few concepts that are relevant or useful for programming in general (first- and second-order logic, set theory, lambda calculus).