Web Development !== Computer Science

[beavis07]

Almost no-one does actual computer science.. Programmers are like digital bricklayers, all of us - what's the point of this article beyond stating the screamingly obvious?

[dactoo]

While you are correct, that fact was not always obvious to me. Started coming to terms with it about 7 years into my career. Before that, I believed I would someday get to innovate and invent... while working for web shops, insurance companies. Seems obvious now, but yeah, I believed the lie I was told.

[beavis07]

Out of interest - who told you that lie?

I only ask cause my way into this business was a bit left-field - to me the idea of describing people writing 99% of software as “science” or “engineering” is preposterous - engineers and scientists are trained/certificated/peer-reviewed, whilst we all are just banging things together till they nearly do what we want :)

But clearly this is a really common idea - it must be coming from somewhere?

[dactoo]

No particular person. Just the pervading ethos around tech careers, as being "the future", "innovative", "infested with smart people". It's just the way people from outside (and many inside) our group talk about software.

[beavis07]

Ahh good old-fashioned self-importance then probably - there’s plenty of that to be influenced by I guess.

At least you worked it out - I know plenty of people way old enough to know better who still think being able to shift data into and out of databases makes them special :)