Ask HN: Why are many mathematicians not interested in computer programming?

I was talking to a physicist on the bus today who does a lot of numerical and computational work. He was telling me about how he and Ken Wilson learned to program a specializing SIMD machine in the 1980s that quickly became obsolete.

He told me that he thought knowledge about computers had a shelf life but knowledge about physics was eternal.

Math in particular has that element of universality (can't believe that intelligent aliens wouldn't know about the integers, Pythagorean triangles, etc.) For that matter, there are aspects of computing that are universal too because they are math.

Mathematics and computer programming are two different fields, so I don't find it surprising that people who choose one are perhaps not so interested in the other.

Generally speaking, mathematicians view programming as one of the tools to use in their professional endeavors, not as a thing of interest in and of itself. Just as programmers view mathematics as one of the tools to use in their professional endeavors, not as a thing of interest in and of itself.

As currently practised, programming requires attention to way more "useless" detail than maths.

Why are many computer programmers not interested in mathematics?

Are they bad at mathematics or do they just not like it?

In my experience many (most?) programmers are not interested in mathematics. Do they have to be?

Programming is just a tool to solve problems. By itself it hardly solve any direct problems.

how big is your sample? 1, 2, many?

Computer programming isn't real math