I think OP was using math as a scalar metaphor for programming.
In that vein, I'm not saying you need to literally know algebra, just that it's a parallel kind of progress.
The point being that if you know algebra well, you can do useful things with math. In a similar vein, if you know functions well, you can do useful things with programming.
However, concepts such as recursion, and other metaprogramming don't really make sense at that level.
You can make rote crud apps with an algebra level understanding of programming.