"Knowing" binary isn't some deep, fundamental CS knowledge, it's a party trick. Knowing about different number systems in general is nice, but hardly foundational.
The actual choice of what we consider part of the "core" CS curriculum is pretty arbitrary. Why do we consider, say, binary part of that but semantics not? Would it be "gatekeeping" to say that you can't be a good programmer without a passing knowledge of, say, operational and denotational semantics? Do you really have a "complete" CS education without it?
> "Knowing" binary isn't some deep, fundamental CS knowledge, it's a party trick.
Reread my comment I never said binary in-and-of itself is "deep" knowledge. I said not knowing it is a proxy for a lack of CS knowledge more generally.
The actual choice of what we consider part of the "core" CS curriculum is pretty arbitrary. Why do we consider, say, binary part of that but semantics not? Would it be "gatekeeping" to say that you can't be a good programmer without a passing knowledge of, say, operational and denotational semantics? Do you really have a "complete" CS education without it?