Just another Friday, had a good laugh at work today when a reader submitted a hilarious comment on my team’s blog post yesterday. Then, I found this on Reddit .. also tickled me because I’ve had room mates, since .. hmm .. ever since I moved out from mom and dad’s!Then, this post on Hacker News. Interesting question asked over and over, and a clear and concise answer.Â
Question:
I think it’s interesting that I see a lot of people saying that computer programmers don’t need degrees, but I rarely see anyone saying the same thing about physicists, biologists, mathematicians, or zoologists. I wonder why that is.
Maybe there really are people decrying degrees in those other fields and I just don’t hear about it because I’m a computer programmer. But I suspect that degrees are actually required and respected in those fields. What is it about Computer Science that makes people think you can read a few books on your own and you are qualified? What is it about the other fields in math, science, and engineering that make that not the case?
Answer:
- Computer programming does not EQUAL Computer Science
- Technicians implement others’ designs using skills
- Engineers create new designs using knowledge
- Scientists create new knowledge
“Pure” programmers are technicians. Computer scientists are engineers or scientists.
Plumbing, like programming, offers immediate feedback, is cheap to try on your own, and is useful even if you’re not an expert. But plumbers aren’t the same as hydraulic engineers or fluid dynamics experts.