I'm sympathetic to having to take courses on material you already know, but I do think there is some justification to making everybody take an intro CS course.

I'm sympathetic to having to take courses on material you already know, but I do think there is some justification to making everybody take an intro CS course. Specifically if it's a course that is about teaching the ways of thinking about programming, such as abstraction, composition, state, rather than a rote course on how to write code, then it provides students with a foundation that is rarely seen in AP courses or self-study. It can be an opportunity for a professor to provide their views and experiences on programming. It can also be a chance to talk about other essential, but rarely discussed topics such as ethics, the qualities of a good programmer, programmer culture, etc. Of course an intro course that is this well thought out is rather rare, in which case experienced people should by all means skip the rote nonsense.