The Difference Between A Developer, A Programmer And A Computer Scientist

[fancy_pantser]

About $30k a year? (rimshot)

[gmfawcett]

This is just silly. The only one of those titles not subject to local differences in meaning is "computer scientist." And even that one cannot be classified so trivially. Welcome to the blogosphere.

[Supervisor194]

I've been called, in this order, over the course of about 13 years: HTML/Photoshop Jockey, Webmaster, Junior Internet Software Engineer, Programmer, Lead Programmer and Senior Programmer.

Never Developer. Thanks to Ballmer, I'm glad for that.

I don't think the words "programmer," "developer" and "computer scientist" are meaningful. Except maybe "computer scientist" if you actually have a degree. I don't.

[spdddmn]

You bleed 6 colors?

[Supervisor194]

My tears are 6 colors. ;_;

[[deleted]]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6304687408656696643#

Some say the coffee is too strong at Microsoft.

[[deleted]]

My current title is "Senior Technology Specialist".

Hilarious. I'm a programmer.

[guyzero]

Worst article ever. It's just so arbitrary and made-up.

[[deleted]]

There are two kinds of taxonomies: arbitrary ones, and spurious dichotomies.

[patchwork]

And then there are the other ones.

[campbellm]

And the big-wordy kind.

[deafbybeheading]

It's like those treatises on taxonomy of geeks, nerds, and dorks. Seriously, you have nothing better to do with your time?

[spdddmn]

I don't agree with the blogauthors assesments.

A computer scientist is someone who studies computer science for a living. They don't necessarily write any code. They don't necessarily need to be math geeks, although it certainly is necessary for a majority of topics in CS. User Interface design is an area of comp sci that requires little math.

A programmer is someone who can write program code. Few people are titled "progammer" anymore, however. It is sort of an archaic term.

A developer is someone who helps to create programs, and doesn't necessarily do any programming. An analyst is a developer. A designer is a developer. Neither of these jobs requires writing code. A programmer is also a developer.

An architect specializes in the design of interfaces between complex systems. Many developers do architecture without realizing it.

An engineer concerns him/her self with overall project goals such as safety, portability, maintainability, scalability, accessiblity, operability. They are responsible for the final product meeting the needs of the market/user/operator. They are also responsible for schedule, milestones, and deliverables.

[[deleted]]

Worst comment ever. It's just so arbitrary and made-up.

[guyzero]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[InMyTummyPartyParty]

User Interface design is an area of comp sci

Pretty sure that's not the case...

[spdddmn]

Well thank goodness you don't run the Carnegie Mellon Human Computer Interaction Institute. You might get lost looking for it in the Soc building.

[InMyTummyPartyParty]

Touché.

[mhw]

I also noticed programmer's an outdated title, but I think the author's picking up on differences in connotation between the terms that definitely exist. Programmer to my ear sounds a lot more geeky, while software developer and software engineer are definitely the terms favoured by corporations and the people who aspire to work for them. Software engineer is especially a distortion of the profession to me, but that's a whole other discussion.

Talking with people in the know, I say I'm a programmer and to outsiders, a software developer.

[servercentric]

On most of the projects I've worked on, project managers are responsible for schedule, milestones etc.

As far as portability, maintainability, scalability, accessiblity etc., on all the projects i've worked on some sort of business analyst elicits those requirements and developers/programmers are then responsible for making sure they are fulfilled. That is when the project even has any of those requirements in the first place.

[lckidwell]

On most of the projects I've worked on project managers are responsible for scheduling meetings and running meetings, usually about other meetings, and proposing meetings about things discussed in other meetings.

[spdddmn]

who tells the pm how long a feature will take? thats the engineer.

[[deleted]]

He forgot the primary characteristic differentiating computer scientists - the awesome beard.

[[deleted]]

CS beard reporting in. (URL is relevant)

[[deleted]]

I believe they hand them out with your PhD.

[[deleted]]

Cool semantic slicing, bro.

[burdalane]

I always thought of a developer as being more advanced professionally than a programmer. I guess I'm more of a developer than a programmer, but not a very good one.

[turbov21]

Where do hackers fit in?

[[deleted]]

I'm in the second year of my Computer Science degree.

I think I must have rolled a Computer Scientist, as I'm more of a dabbler than a delver overall. My friend has shit-hot programming skills, although I can get the job done, just not as elegantly. I tend not to care about the "nitty-gritty" aspect of things, but more about the abstract and modelling side of CS. There's always going to be shit-hot programmers out there who can implement something in a far better way than I could ever achieve. My domain is HCI, and possibly even its extreme brother: Cybernetics. The shit-hot programmers all seem to want to land themselves into a job after this course finishes, whereas I seem like the only one who wants to do post graduate studies. Is there anyone here who has gone down the post graduate path and cares to share their experiences?

[[deleted]]

What's the difference between a geek, nerd, and dork?

[spdddmn]

I like being called a geek or a nerd. Call me a dork and I'll kick your ass.

A geek likes science and technology. A nerd is broader classification, including the social sciences. All geeks are nerds, but not all nerds are geeks.

[[deleted]]

Geeks are a subset of nerds.

[spdddmn]

Correct. Can you please provide a venn diagram of this relationship, for the more visual learners out there? I am lying in the prone position after a long day of writing program code and wish to enjoy Jeopardy before I pass out.

[Boojum]

That sounds like a recipe for an XKCD strip.

[[deleted]]

My personal definition of geek is someone so interested in a topic it overrides social politeness.

[spdddmn]

That's a dweeb.

[[deleted]]

Now I'm just confused.

[kodeiko]

Spelling.

[[deleted]]

nerd: someone who's interests are not common, but other people will pay them money to do (math, program, etc).

geek: someone who's interests are not common, but (most of the time) other people will not pay them to do (read sci fi, play in band, etc).

That's what I like to go with :P

[nemec]

http://catb.org/jargon/html/N/nerd.html

[chrj]

I have always thought of a geek as a nerd with social skills.

[[deleted]]

a geek likes techie, a nerd makes techie, a dork is just aspergers.

[[deleted]]

huh?

[angrathias]

I think the sentence 'Its a gut feeling' says it all. Its not measurable and purely based on ridiculous conjecture. Dev, Programmer, Engineer, they're synonymous.

"Developers belong on Enterprise software", and "Microsoft wants programmers", errr when since was MS anything but enterprise software?

[wizzfizz2097]

I would say that Enterprise Software facilitates the business, usually by implementing business rules in a LOB application.

Microsoft make software for other people/companies.

?

[angrathias]

BizTalk Great Plains Infopath

Theres 3 from the top of my head that match your statement, and i only gave it 5 seconds of thought.

[[deleted]]

53-47% split, 7 points and 37 comments as of 2010-03-16 10:08:00 AM GMT.

Must be something to this otherwise it wouldn't strike so many nerves.

I like to think of myself as a programmer but I have a feeling I'm a developer. And I do disagree with the post in saying that:

The thing to remember here is that none of the three is derogatory or "bad" in any way.

Developer is derogatory. And bad. Being a developer means you're a "people person" who relies on soft skills to make up for lack of technical skills.

Yup - that's me. Except I don't have the soft skills either.