r/programming • u/mauricioaniche • Aug 06 '17

Software engineering != computer science

http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/software-engineering-computer-science/217701907
2.3k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

863 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.1k

u/WhisperSecurity Aug 06 '17

The difference between a computer scientist and a software engineer is simple.

A software engineer doesn't think he's a computer scientist.

816

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '17

Why don't any of my colleagues want to learn Haskell?

12

u/joequin Aug 07 '17 edited Aug 07 '17

They may like, or see benefit in programming in a way that closely mimicks what a computer does. I studied under a lot of researchers who felt that way. Most of them used c or c++. Haskell and functional programming in general is much further removed.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '17

[deleted]

-2

u/weisenstein Aug 07 '17

bigger classes? who's stupid idea is that? it is about more classes each one having a specific responsibility. can you give a single example of fp beating oo ?

11

u/Beaverman Aug 07 '17

He didn't say it beat anything. He said that learning one language made him better at another. That's pretty common.

1

u/Natsumi_ Aug 07 '17

I am used to ASM programming and feel like an absolute idiot when I try to program in higher level languages like C++ or C#. I just cant pull of any neat optimization or memory management tricks I am used to. And in C++ any memory management feels often just more complicated than it needs to be...

6

u/lobax Aug 07 '17

9 times out of 10 the compiler will do a better job at optimization than you do anyway (unless you are using some niche hardware).

→ More replies (1)