If you think code theory is bad you haven't seen what we do in university. We started with abstraction theory, now moving to signal theory, math fundamentals and functional programming (Haskell). On the other hand, coding, especially when it involves 3d graphics, is quite math-heavy. I certainly didn't have 4-dimensional…
If i'm doing something fun like flash, I don't mind it. I like to be able to see the results of my coding on screen. If i'm doing some data structures in C++ or something boring and ungodly, I can't stand it!
the way our teacher went about it was just get in the classroom and then he started writing variables without any further explanation.. very confusing to say the least :S i guess this togheter with my "enthusiasm" for coding isnt a very good combination
The same reason you think art is fun It's always extremely gratifying to see the pieces of your code come together to form something more complicated. Then again, I do most of my programmig on graphics, which is even more instant reward (once it works).