The problem attracted only moderate interest

That might be the case because we had at least two somewhat lengthy discussions about two similar questions that fall into the same category of NP-complete optimization problems (during the last 6 months I think).

when do you find yourself, if ever, drawing on both mathematical understanding and programming smarts and how do you see the two related?

These days I'm writing simulations for electronic transport on small scales, and that certainly requires strong mathematic background, mainly in linear algebra.

The programming itself isn't all that complicated, but still demanding, because it's very hard to obtain test cases, and because we're working at the limit of our available computing resources.

From a design point of view they are simple, because they are "just" initialization of matrices, and then various operations on these matrices - something for which a simple procedural setup works very well.

Does it happen more at work? more on your own personal programming projects?

My university projects tend to require more skills in analysis and linear algebra, while some personal projects involve combinatoric problems, or require more design skills (something which I severely lack).

What did you find yourself learning (mathematically) after school as part of your programming survival kit?

I found some of the discrete mathematics quite interesting that Knuth teaches in his first "The Art of Computer Programming" volume. That said, I had a rather good mathematical foundation when leaving school (that covered 90% of what I needed so far for "normal" programming), so I didn't do very much in that direction.

And finally, how does Perl as a language help or hinder you in those rare (or maybe not so rare times) when you need to think both theoretically and practically at the same time?

Since Perl helps me to do what I want, it is very helpful - but not more helpful than in other areas, and not ideal for my numeric calculations either.