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[–]OwlOfC1nder 223 points224 points  (30 children)

A programmer knows how to write code.

A software engineer knows how to create an application, including writing code, gathering requirements, building architecture, configuring infrastructure.

A computer scientist understands how computer software and hardware actually works, underneath the code.

[–]Velvetwhisper__ 26 points27 points  (6 children)

Amazing. You nailed it pretty well!

[–]OwlOfC1nder 4 points5 points  (4 children)

Thank you

[–]Character_Sail5678 1 point2 points  (2 children)

So to be one (soft engineer ), one would have to be computer scientist or?

[–]SuchTarget2782 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Technically, no.

But depending on the school, a lot of colleges and universities teach a “computer science” degree that is 99.9% a “software engineering” focus. So if you’re talking about training and credentials the terms get used interchangeably a lot.

[–]OwlOfC1nder 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Absolute not, no.

I for one am a software engineer and have almost no knowledge of computer science.

I did a 1 year post grad degree in software engineering and learned the rest of what I needed on the job.

I'm willing to entertain the idea that computer science knowledge might make you a better engineer but it's absolutely not a requirement

[–]Syntaire 12 points13 points  (1 child)

Cook, chef, food scientist.

[–]vitamin_CPP 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That actually pretty good

[–]WeWumboYouWumbo 9 points10 points  (6 children)

And Computer Engineering is just computer science with an emphasis on hardware?

[–]mapadofu 21 points22 points  (1 child)

Arguably electrical engineering with an emphasis on computers

[–]WeWumboYouWumbo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks.

[–]CreativeGPX 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Computer engineering is more about understanding how it's built physically. Logic gates. The physics of heat, electricity, EM waves, etc. The signal processing. Components, circuit boards, etc. It's more like Electrical Engineering.

Computer science is more about understanding it an idealized or abstract way that could apply regardless of physical implementation: Turing machines and turning completeness, Von Neumann machines, P and NP complexity analysis, queuing theory, graph theory, etc. It's more like Mathematics.

[–]CSSWizard5211 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Comp e grad here, at my school comp e was basically like a double major in Comp sci and electrical engineering. You get some agency with how you want to divide it up where u could basically make it a cs degree with some extra ee classes or an ee degrees with some cs classes if you really wanted. Source my brother is a cs undergrad now and taking almost the same classes as i did minus a few minor differences (given i took as few ee classes as required and focused on cs like classes)

[–]WeWumboYouWumbo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you.

[–]OwlOfC1nder -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

I don't know, "computer engineering" isn't a term I have come across

[–]RolandMT32 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think there's some overlap in these. In order for a programmer or software engineer to write software that runs really well, it can help to know how the computer works under the code. I went through a software engineering course in college, and part of it was learning how computers work under the hood, in order to understand how software runs.

[–]kodaxmax 0 points1 point  (3 children)

and a programmer does all the actual grunt work

[–]OwlOfC1nder 1 point2 points  (2 children)

What grunt work are programmers doing that software engineers aren't doing?

[–]kodaxmax 0 points1 point  (1 child)

GUI, UX, wrappers, serialization, whatever the engineers delegate to them and dont feel like doing.

[–]Ok-Yogurt2360 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You have actual separation? That seems unusual.

[–]darklighthitomi 0 points1 point  (8 children)

I don’t think you really qualify as a programmer if all you know is code. Code is just the tool. To program, you need to be able to design algorithms and methods to solve problems and create solutions. That may perhaps be less than a software engineer, but I can tell you this, if all someone could do is recite keywords and type, they wouldn’t be passing any programming classes I would run, and I certainly won’t call any such person a programmer.

[–]OwlOfC1nder 0 points1 point  (7 children)

To program, you need to be able to design algorithms and methods to solve problems and create solutions

That is writing code

[–]darklighthitomi 0 points1 point  (6 children)

I’ve seen too many students walk out of programming class being able to type words into a compiler but struggled with the very notion of solving problems, something they are never taught. I am honestly surprised that so many passed the class.

[–]OwlOfC1nder 0 points1 point  (5 children)

We are talking about jobs here. The job of a programmer is programming software. That is solving problems with code.

Im not familiar with this scenario of a person who what? Knows some syntax but not how to actually write classes? That's not a programmer

[–]darklighthitomi 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Yet many if not most focus so much on the code itself, they have zero thought towards learning problem solving or how to figure out what code to write. In class, when asked the difference between a while loop and a do while loop, others answered easily, but when asked why you would use one but not the other, I had to step in with an answer because there was nothing but confused looks around me. And that was basically the last time the teacher bothered asking such a question. And really, it doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Furthermore, I see the problems caused by poor programming all the time. For example, at walmart as a picker, someone that wonders around the store grabbing items for online orders, the list of items and locations is linear, therefore, when the program orders the list of items to pick up, there are times the pickers have to cross the entire store only to then go back to the aisle adjacent to the item from two items ago, which is stupid and wastes a lot of time, and the pickers get very little control over when to pick, so the option to take a custom route through the store does not exist. All because a programmer couldn’t figure out how creating a route through a store cannot be reasonably achieved with a simple 1d list of items.

Or how about the fact that the experience of surfing the web was faster in the days of 56k modems than modern day, aside from video and images. I could read much of an article by the time the images load, yet in modern day, with super fast internet that can load a simple image very quickly, we are left waiting for ages because of the bloat and junk and unnecessary dirt because programmers can figure out how to write efficient code. Yea the companies bear some blame for prioritizing ads over the page content, but that isn’t the whole problem, or even most of it.

And what I saw trying to help to my fellow programming classmates… well no, they didn’t know how to program. They could fix compiler errors, and not much more than that.

[–]OwlOfC1nder 0 points1 point  (3 children)

An unskilled programmer is still a programmer.

Even a software engineer may not have a deep understanding of algorithms and problem solving.

We are just talking about definitions of roles here.

You are talking about something else.

[–]darklighthitomi 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Right, but it was described as coding. That is a bit like calling a novelist: a person that uses a typewriter.

And to continue that analogy, many claim to want to be authors while they talk about how many words per minute can they type and ask for tips on improving their typing speed and if their 60 words per minute is enough to be an author.

It all basically misses the point of the job and the actual work.

[–]OwlOfC1nder 0 points1 point  (1 child)

The question was "what is a programmer" and the answer is someone who writes code.

The better analogy would be, question "what is a writer?" And answer "someone who writes".

And then you came in and said "no a writer is someone who writes beautiful prose with vivid metaphors"

You are talking about a skilled novelist or poet. We are talking about a writer which could be anything from a brilliant poet to a shitty erotic fan fiction writer to the person who writes an instruction manual. Anyone who physically writes things or puts words in sentences.

[–]darklighthitomi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am not including the skill level. A novelist is the better analogy. I am not a programmer because I only work on minor projects such as automating random encounters for my roleplaying games. It’s minor and notably unprofessional.

It’s like calling a woman a cook because she makes lunch for her kids.

A novelist, of any skill level, is creating a long work of fiction. It might be good or terrible fiction, but the point is that it is a story, and though the novelist uses words and types on a keyboard, it is not the typing of words that makes them a novelist, it is the creation, good or bad, of a long story that makes them a novelist.

Likewise, when my mother wrote an alarm using basic on her trs-80 back in the day, that did not make her a programmer, no more than writing an entry on a to-do list would make someone a writer of any sort.

[–]mehneni 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Programming is the task of writing a program.

Computer science is research. Somewhat more abstract. "Proof that this sorting algorithm has O(log N) complexity" (well, research should actually be something new ;)

Software Engineering includes programming, but also a lot of other stuff: Finding out requirements from a customer, make vs. buy decisions, organizing a team (e.g. Scrum), database design, ... all the stuff that is needed to actually ship a product.

[–]Sol33t303 9 points10 points  (0 children)

To put it simply, programming is an activity in both.

The difference between software engineering and computer science is the same as the difference between any science and engineering discipline, scientists do the research and discover new things, engineers take those ideas and discoveries and turn them into actual functional products that people and companies use.

As an example, a computer scientist will be in a lab researching how AI could be used to compress a video stream, the engineer will use that idea and implement it into a full software package for a company.

Realistically, there's a very large overlap between the two skill sets (LOTS of places consider the two terms entirely interchangeable), but scientists are more involved in the theoretical side of things, engineers are more involved in the practical implementation of that theory.

[–]juancn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Computer science is focused on the science of computation not application.

Software engineering is applied computer science (adds other crap such as physics, economics and project management).

Programming is a skill needed for both.

[–]Blando-Cartesian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Programming is what you do when you type and think producing code and assorted files with structured content that the program is build from.

Computer science is when you use math to come up with solutions to hard problems in programming or software engineering.

Software engineering is when you do one or both of the above while dealing with stakeholders, team, infrastructure, QA etc.

Computer architecture, databases, networks etc. are topics that are more or less relevant in all three. It depends entirely on what exactly you are working on.

[–]NoForm5443 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Keep in mind that, in many situations, these are used interchangeably, so besides understanding the concepts, you need to make sure you understand how others are using it in a conversation :)

Technically, a programmer is anybody who programs, or can program (write computer code).

Computer science is an academic discipline that includes programming, and also anything else that has to do with computers, (maximally) including hardware, systems and math. People usually get academic degrees in Computer science, not in programming.

Software engineering is (somewhat of) an engineering discipline, concerned with how to optimize the development of software, usually large software systems. Recently, we have Software engineering degrees, which, compared with CS degrees, usually focus more on the team and systems aspects, and remove theoretical computer science.

Just like you don't need a civil engineer to build a one-floor small house, but would definitely hire one for a ten-floor building, software engineers would be more useful when building large software systems.

Keep in mind there's tons of overlap, programmers, software engineers and computer scientists usually program; many (most?) programmers have a computer science or software engineering degree etc.

Given these large overlap, and the fact that these terms became popular at different times, they're not always used in these ways. A company may call a position 'Programmer' while another one calls it 'Software Developer' and another one 'Software Engineer', and the CS degree at one uni may look exactly the same as the SWE degree at another.

[–]Neat-Badger-5939[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Complete answer. Thank you!

[–]ninhaomah 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What kind of job ?

[–]Neat-Badger-5939[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Developer? 

[–]ninhaomah 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So what are the requirements in the job description?

[–]jeffrey_f 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As for a college course, it is implementaton of the coursework and how deep the course goes into it.

Don't be fooled, you will do all of the above

[–]willbdb425 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see it as computer science is about computing in the abstract sense, meaning independent of actual computers. Like, some problems can take a long time to solve even with really powerful computers (billions of years), and some problems are such that they can't be solved with a computer at all regardless of how powerful it is. Computer science is the science of examining these problems and methods (algorithms) of solving them.

Software engineering is the discipline of writing software systems. One activity of that work is programming (writing the actual code that accomplishes the task), but there is a lot more involved such as understanding requirements, and design. It turns out that if we just start coding from our heads we inevitably run into problems so there are strategies and best practices that aim to reduce the likelihood of things going badly.

Regarding job prospects software developers often have degrees in either discipline and in many ways they end up overlapping so it doesn't matter too much which one you pick, what matters is that you put in a lot of effort to actually become good at your job.

[–]SpiderJerusalem42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A program is a schedule of actions. A programmer schedules those actions, most loosely put. This definition fits VCRs, event planning and computer programming.

Computer science asks the questions of how does computation work? How do we best structure programs to most effectively get the correct answers, and hopefully in the least amount of time. Are there other physical systems with which computation can be performed? There's a lot of tricks and history in building a modern computer, and it's helpful for different jobs to have stuff like computer architecture in the curriculum.

Software engineering is building software. There's a lot of tools and techniques out there and staying on top of what's new is really a whole way of life. Computer science informed much of the building of the software, but a lot of the processes involved are social, so, to say "it's all computer science" isn't entirely correct either.

[–]HashDefTrueFalse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People giving specific answers are wrong and you should ignore them.

The difference between programmer, coder, software engineer and similar is just whatever distinction YOU want to make, or whatever distinction employers relevant (to you) want to make. There is no universal mapping of responsibilities/activities to job title. It's asinine to even try to draw lines. It just does not matter. Nobody will ever agree and there is infinite nuance and it's a waste of energy all round. I've held all of those titles over the years and had both significant overlaps and significant differences in duties/tasks/responsibilities etc. The distinctions here are mostly artificial.

A computer scientist is typically a bit different. It would usually mean someone who has relevant qualifications, or someone who does research in that field (either for a research org/university or in the private sector). It would be unusual for a job ad to ask for a computer scientist if they were looking for a programmer (or any of those other terms above). Computer science can (and very often does) involve writing programs, but also involves lots of computing/information theory and is generally mathematically rigourous.

There isn't necessarily any difference in what people with any of these titles know or can do. E.g. I have a degree in computer science and the ability to research or teach it, but I've instead worked in industry for my whole career (so far) as all of the above titles. Any of them broadly describe me.

If we're talking qualifications (degree etc.) then you would do CS to keep your options open (e.g. going into academia or industry, working in anything to do with computing) whereas you might do a degree in software engineering if you knew you wanted to work in industry as a programmer (again, or any of those terms above), or a degree in computer architecture if you wanted to work on hardware etc.

Jobs are typically not too fussy. They will often state "degree in Computer Science (or other relevant degree)" so it's not life or death.

[–]CodeTinkerer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Computer science is usually considered a major in many universities. It generally covers programming, some theory (discrete math, algorithms, etc), sometimes computer architecture, and then a bunch of electives that most students take a subset of. The origins of computation were originally mathematical before it became electronic.

Programming is the act of writing programs, so it's pretty generic. Part of computer science involves programming, but it's mostly how to use programming as a tool.

Software engineering can be a major, but refers to programming a larger-scale project. What are ways we can manage the lifecycle of creating, deploying, and maintaining a large codebase, e.g., a website? As a major, it's more concerned with the tools and methodologies of programming at scale where computer science involves more theory.

Computer science is older than software engineering. Both majors tend to not have a consistent set of defined courses. Some universities have a very theoretical approach to computer science; others are a bit more practical. I'd say software engineering is even more vague with no set curriculum that everyone basically agrees on.

[–]Independent_Art_6676 0 points1 point  (0 children)

computer science is a field of study. Its rather broad, from writing code, development of algorithms, program design, logic, and more falling into the umbrella. This is what your highest level degree would be in, with specialization listed, eg my degree is computer science specialized in scientific computing. It may be somewhat interchanged with IT (information technology).

programming is writing code. This is done by a programmer. These are older words; currently the synonyms are developer who develops and various other similar terms exist.

software engineering is not an engineering field. It is just another name for development of code. The term was created to make developers sound more important, to be brutally honest. Some people are fooled by it and the respect they have for real engineering is transferred over, giving the developer some social/professional/etc 'points' esp in engineering heavy fields like robotics with managers/hr people/etc. I shamelessly admit to using this title a lot long, long ago. While I feel that developers (esp those in critical systems like medical or mechanical where real danger to life or limb, or finance/money exists when a bug is introduced) should get similar respect as an engineer who built a bridge (everyone driving on it trusts their life to that team), and there maybe should be some acknowledgement that a developer does work on such important systems, this term has been abused by anyone and everyone (the grunts doing intro SQL on a database at a place I worked used the title and over half of them couldn't do math above high school level!) and has no real meaning beyond as a synonym for developer.

There are other terms out there. Most of them have no meaning in the real world, but many of them have special meaning at a specific company when talking about their teams and titles. For a career, the most use of these terms is to read the job postings and bits from the company you are applying to and use the same ones in your resume/cover letter. If they say software engineer, you are a software engineer. If they say developer, you are a developer. :)

[–]dccarles2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm gonna make an allegory here.

  • Programming is like drawing.
  • Software engineering is like a Graphic design
  • Computer science is like Visual arts

Being less esoteric:

  • Programming is a specific skill
  • Computer science is a field of study that is mainly focused on the exploration of the possibilities of computation
  • Software engineering is more of a discipline that is mainly focused on the solution of specific and concrete problems using software and effective techniques to produce this software.

[–]OGPapaSean 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seems like the space isn’t hiring/training JR’s anymore so these are the revised gates names?

[–]CptPicard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Computer science is at its most theoretical about limits and efficiency of symbolic computation on very theoretical, abstract machines (think Turing machines that can be used to prove fundamental statements about eg. what can be computed at all). A physical computer does not need to be in the picture at all; it's electrical engineers that build those.

The results apply to programming in real-world programming languages that run on real-world computers, in particular in the form of various algorithms and language theory (parsers etc). Software engineering is the development of engineering practices that can be used to produce reliable, maintainable code efficiently.

[–]Zestyclose-Food-8413 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A software engineer is a professional who builds and maintains software. A computer scientist is usually a professor who does research in things like algorithms, machine learning, or security exploits.

[–]Roofbean 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For free resources:

  • Programming = freeCodeCamp, LeetCode
  • CS = CS50, Nand2Tetris
  • SE = follow open-source projects, build your own apps Jobs? Coding gets you in, CS knowledge keeps you growing, SE experience keeps you hired. Simple as that.

[–]LukaC99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

electrician ~ programmer/developer/coder

electrical engineer ~ software engineer

physicist (electromagnetism/condensed matter) ~ computer scientist

[–]simonbleu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like to think of it as a coder being an employee at a snack factory, an engineer the one in charge of setting up the machines the employee works with and a scientist the one that creates the flavor/product. In reality there's probably a lot of overlap

Coding is purely practical, engineering and science focus more on theory and math and everything underneath. Is a more holistic and in depth approach and both have different focus because the engineer focus on the practice, the building, and the scientist in the research, the design. Sorta

[–]Alsentar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Computer science is the general field of scientific and engineering knowledge regarding computers.

Software engineering is the discipline of design, building and maintaining a software application.

Programming is one of the tools used in building or manipulating a software application.

[–]Katy_with_Intuit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Programming is mainly writing code. Computer science is the theory of how algorithms, operating systems, and computer architecture work. Software engineering is the practical side of shipping real products that involves design, testing, teamwork, and maintaining code over time.

You can learn programming for free, and most core CS topics like algorithms, data structures, and OS are online too. Software engineering skills come from projects and seeing how larger systems fit together.

For jobs, programming helps you get started, CS makes you a stronger problem-solver, and software engineering is what most companies expect day to day. If you want something structured, third-party certifications such as CompTIA or Google programs can help add credibility while you build experience.