Sounds like a great opportunity to learn set theory, abstract algebra, number theory, linear algebra. You could get a working comprehension of cryptography or computer graphics. You could get a handle on category theory.
Those are topics that one could make progress on with only a pencil, paper, and the occasional phone call to a mentor.
I cannot imagine submitting punch cards and reading JavaScript stack traces by mail.
He wants to learn to code, not how to become a mathematician.
As an EE student, there are plenty of engineers who know nothing about those topics (except maybe linear algebra) that have successfully completed the image processing/computer vision course.
> Mano, M and Kime, C Logic and Computer Design Fundamentals, 2nd ed Prentice Hall, 2001
"Featuring a strong emphasis on the fundamentals underlying contemporary logic design using hardware description languages, synthesis, and verification,"
You mean to tell me that set theory is too abstract, but full-adders and VHDL are right up his alley.
Nothing is too abstract for a grown adult. It's expected that by that stage you will struggle through whatever is thrown at you. In fact the book list I've copied and pasted are the recommended texts from the "computer engineering 101" class.
The problem is that most mathematicians don't have more than a surface level working knowledge of set theory, because they don't think it's useful. It's even less useful for computer scientists (who use type theory any way).
With the exception of set theory, I've taken the classes you've mentioned, and while they've been very useful for electrical engineering, I don't believe they're useful for software engineering.
I'm not even a great programmer, but I found learning formal logic, abstract algebra and category theory to be incredibly useful. That, algorithms and data structures. That's what I would study if I were in prison. Not, trying to learn Python or something, which could be a dead language by the time you get out.
Those are topics that one could make progress on with only a pencil, paper, and the occasional phone call to a mentor.
I cannot imagine submitting punch cards and reading JavaScript stack traces by mail.