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By bloid
via thebull.macsimumweb.com
Published: Dec 28 2006 / 14:25

The two job descriptions seem to be more or less interchangeable, but more and more I’m starting to think there is a clear difference between the two. When someone asks me what I do for a living and they are not in the IT field I usually just say that I’m a computer programmer
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User 202112 avatar

dgary replied ago:

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I've always thought of programmers as mainly code monkeys, like the guys who wrote UNIX, and developers as code/design/integration, like the guys who wrote Apache.

Kind of like a carpenter vs a handy man, both have very similar talents, but a handyman can't easily build a house, and a carpenter probably can't easily fix a broken dresser, even if they both work with a hammer, nails and saw.

User 213005 avatar

gbraad replied ago:

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UN*X was well thought out, so I won't claim it to be the work of programmers... Programmers are more like PHP 'developers'... those are really programmers... PHP can be considered as the new BASIC language of the 21st century...

Luckily for VB.NET it is a little different nowadays. People do need to have more knowledge of the OO-paradigm to work with it... but trust me, they can still break it.

An example of programmers code

if cmpa == "Green"
{
// do blah
}
if cmpa == "green"
{
// do blah
}
if cmpa == "Blue"
{
// do blah
}

mistakes:
meaningless names
wrong equal implementation
not proper use of branching
no transform to lowercasing to check with
accidental missed cases, etc etc...

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ilazarte replied ago:

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"like the guys who wrote unix". i can't believe someone would place them in the category of monkeys. i think the "the guys who wrote apache" would be horrified by what you just said.

there was an incredible amount of thought and experience that went into unix that is still unsurpassed by design. their major (and probalby only?) mistake was not making it layman friendly. everything else was brilliance.

User 202112 avatar

dgary replied ago:

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you guys say monkeys like its a bad thing, I consider myself a code monkey, mostly because I sit endlessly staring at a screen and fling poo at those who interrupt me.

User 205872 avatar

cha0sth30ry complained ago:

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cha0sth30ry reported this link as inaccurate on 12/28/2006 @ 08:02:48

hmmm the problem with the article is that the guy claiming to be a "programmer" at the poker game was wrong. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't consider anyone who just built custom Excel sheets either a programmer or developer. If that's the case then almost everyone in Big Corporation's marketing or business development department would be a "programmer".

Give me a break.

User 205872 avatar

cha0sth30ry replied ago:

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it's like calling someone who just does html a "programmer... where I'm from we call them scripters

User 204084 avatar

kenman replied ago:

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Do you have any knowledge of HTML or scripting at all? It really doesn't sound like it. HTML is not a scripting language, therefore to call someone who uses HTML a "scripter" is just as bad as calling them a "programmer".

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ashayh complained ago:

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ashayh reported this link as lame on 12/28/2006 @ 09:33:44

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ipearx replied ago:

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I've always thought of a programmer as someone who concentrates on the code, while a developer thinks about the whole project, not just the code.

User 170505 avatar

thebull replied ago:

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I agree. There is a great link that someone left in the comments to an article on Hacknot that goes into more details about that very idea.

User 210294 avatar

satov replied ago:

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Isn't this the developer/architect debate ? Isn't the developer a more interesting name for programmer ?

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thebull replied ago:

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I would have to say no to that. I intentionally left out the architect role because you can be an architect and not have great programming skills. I wouldn't have believed it if I haven't met such a person myself. Both programmers and developers write code, most architects don't or at least don't have to. Architects should have a working knowledge of the technology they are architecting, but leave the development to, well developers and programmers.

User 210294 avatar

satov replied ago:

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I'm not really sure about this. Rather then programmer vs developer I'd just put a scale: good bright programmers (or developers if you prefer) vs bad or mediocre ones :D.

User 205107 avatar

serberus complained ago:

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serberus reported this link as lame on 12/30/2006 @ 06:55:10

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