The popular understanding of "math" very much is "performing the correct sequence of calculations/manipulations to solve a given problem". This is because US ma

The popular understanding of "math" very much is "performing the correct sequence of calculations/manipulations to solve a given problem". This is because US math is taught this way, from addition of fractions to symbolic differentiation of functions in high school. Most people never grok that math is really about building abstractions of various levels of sophistication and saying (proving) useful/interesting things about those abstractions. Programming fits more with the latter notion. Even web programming: we have abstractions like user interface, color theme, database table, scripts, etc. The web programmer has to construct these abstractions and then do useful things with them. I would agree that programming and math are cognitively very similar, and both very similar to using language. However, I also understand why programmers may like programming yet "hate math". It's because their understanding of math is derived from US standard math education, which is essentially about the memorization of symbolic procedures, with very little constructive abstraction happening.