In this study, we investigate how students undertaking an elective programming course experience the connection between programming and mathematics. Based on stimulated recall interviews with six Grade 8 students who have solved test items from PISA 2003, we identify various experiences among the students regarding how they draw on programming skills in mathematics and vice versa. We propose that three findings, in particular, are worthy of further discussion and investigation: the way some experience programming as a context for mathematics and mathematics as a context for programming; the challenges that follow from how some students assert that programming and mathematics complement each other while others struggle to see a connection; and, perhaps the most important, the way in which the students report that experiences from programming have equipped them with skills such as being systematic and exact, which they find they need in mathematics.