13 replies to this topic

[miladinoski]

In which one of these 2 do you find yourselves? And do you think that there is a difference between those two?

The most often opinion is that it's all about semantics. Coders are those which analyse the written code, solve errors, and type the same lines of code very often. Programmers are allegedly those who "have the brain", those who create stuff.

If you ask any expert from a software's house, he'll say to you that for programming you need academic knowledge for complex algorithms and methods of programming, and the coding requires finished high-school and one semester course in programming in some programming language.

In the last few years a phenomenon was "discovered" between the programmers - the thing is that they want to create something that is theirs . They are more and more abandoned by the big software houses and they aren't even mentioned on conferences and summits. But, why doesn't it have to be like that, when a huge number of the programmers don't stay in one company, they change companies, take training from the company, and afterwards after working for that company so the company would have earnings from the training of the programmers, they go to another company to get more knowledge. However, lots of the programmers want to get out from their monotone working/coding, which doesn't excite them like it did before. So they change companies, work a few months (eventually a year or so), and step by step, they want to reach some of the software giants, where their ideas could possibly be taken in consideration and after that eventually implemented.


Like an addition, I'd like to say that the concept of a programmer should be taken as an "engineer". Either you'll be a programmer, or you'd be a coder - depending on where you work. But, if you are a programmer/engineer and you are already working as a coder, then that's just simply neglecting your gathered knowledge.

[williamm]

I find my self as a coder.

For the reason is i am a Web Desinger. Therefore i code, i do it all day and get customers all day. That makes me a coder. I would rather code then program, because it think it takes more time and issue work to get a program running opposed to a web site. Yeah people say o a 10 year old can make a site. I dont know it depends if he is smart in computers to be honest lol. But it takes time to code sites as though you take time to make a program. everyone has their theroys. i have mine.

IF you need help though on any website design let me know you can visit my site www.clubnet-host.com or you can e-mail me at webmaster@clubnet-host.com its my job to make sites so therefor is advertise my self as much as i can.

[sonesay]

Hey I checked out your site and I think you forgot to update something

Quote

© 2004 Your Corporation. All rights reserved

Maybe you should change that to your respective company name and maybe update the year.

To the original poster I still do not get what your trying to say here. A programmer codes and a coder doesn't program? To me they are both the same you cant really just code and not program unless your just copy and pasting code you don't understand then they obviously wouldn't qualify as either. I don't get the mentality to try and distinguish between the two and putting coders on a lower level then programmers

Edited by sonesay, 05 August 2008 - 06:41 AM.

[dimumurray]

Hmm...tough question. I think the differences between the two are pretty broad.

Most programmers actually start out as coders. I remember myself as a preteen looking at source code, unable to tell what it was meant to do by merely looking at it. Of course that didn't stop me from typing the code in and figuring out how to compile and run it. Imagine my prepubescent joy when I saw a little yellow ball bouncing off the four corners of my little Magnovox monitor...ahhh the memories (dabs eyes with napkin). I was hooked ever since. But I didn't become a programmer overnight. I did a lot more mindless code input before I started to make sense of code syntax and discerning different language constructs. Eventually you start buying books. Usually for the budding coder the content of those early book purchases are limited in scope. Often reflecting a specific interest. In my case I purchased a number of ghastly game programming titles in my early teens. Titles like "Teach yourself Game Programming in 21 Days" come to mind . Coders at this phase unwittingly cheat themselves out of garnering a well-rounded knowledge base from which to draw from, but you know the saying 'the heart wants what the heart wants'. You also start picking up on little coding tricks (and a few bad habits as well), which you naturally abuse. Yes folks I'm taking from experience here. I can recall a time when I thought Look Up Tables(LUTs) were the greatest thing since sliced bread. But I digress.

There is only so much you can learn in vacuum however. And sometimes there are things you learn that won't serve you well in the long run (fixed-point math anyone). Ultimately what separates a Coder from a Programmer is a solid foundation in the fundamentals of the craft. These include but are not limited to understanding and being able to implement data structures like stacks, queues, heaps, hash-tables, Maps, Trees and their countless variants; measuring the efficiency of an algorithm via asymptotic notation; writing sorting algorithms; language paradigms etc. Though nowadays many of these elements come pre-packaged as API's you still need to know when it's best to apply them and when its not. And you never know, a day might come when you need to 'roll your own'.

The separation between Coder and Programmer begins with a College Level Education. In a good institution you'll learn all the fundamentals and then some. And with a few good Professors to clue you in on the industry and what to expect in the field, your skills will grow and rapidly within the span of those four years. The trick is to find good schools with a solid Comp. Sci. program with courses covering not only the fundamentals but pertinent and current technologies as well.

Though this is a dynamic industry, schools are reluctant to adapt or integrate technologies into their curriculum unless they have a proven record of longevity. While understandable this fact puts tertiary institutions as much as 4-6 years (on average) behind industry. Yet the same industry that demands expert knowledge of the latest technologies, does not invest enough in mentoring to compensate for the lack. One of the industry's many dilemmas.

There seems to be a trend out there that is spawning coders by the dozen. Most apps today are built to allow for modification. Some supply GUI tools to achieve such ends (level map builders for FPSs) but many also allow modification via scripts in the form XML or some other standard. The initial goal of these scripting language developers was ease of use. But given time users of the applications often demand a richer feature set. Over time simple scripting engines start looking like fully-fledged programming languages equipped with GUI IDEs and debugging capabilities. Mayhap coders will have no recourse but to become programmers. But then again maybe not...

Edited by dimumurray, 05 August 2008 - 02:47 PM.

[gmichael]

For me, I would prefer to be a programmer than to be a coder. It is because i am more interested in algorithms of the programs. I like to be the one who create the algorithms, logic of the program than just modifying and editing codes. I like it more to be the brain cause you have the control of everything...hhehehe But as what dimumuray said that most programmers started to be a coder, so for you to be a good programmer you have to learn from other programmers and also share what you have learned.

[longer]

gmichael, on Aug 5 2008, 06:00 AM, said:

For me, I would prefer to be a programmer than to be a coder. It is because i am more interested in algorithms of the programs. I like to be the one who create the algorithms, logic of the program than just modifying and editing codes. I like it more to be the brain cause you have the control of everything...hhehehe But as what dimumuray said that most programmers started to be a coder, so for you to be a good programmer you have to learn from other programmers and also share what you have learned.

I like your idea of being a programmer. So I was a programmer ananlyst then a system architect. I'd rather be fishing some days so I don't have to sit in front of the computer the whole day.

[Saint_Michael]

I would have to consider myself a coder since I do do stuff by scratch I rather try to improve with what I know and what not. Although there is no real difference between a programmer and a coder in a sense of what they do and so it becomes one of those more in depth questions that need to be answered and that was slightly covered in the posts in here so far. However, I have to disagree somewhat about the difference between a programmer and a coder at the educational level.

Since you can pick up programming languages outside of the education system, but rather the school system helps reinforce what you know and help jump start a career in programming. Of course, the other part is repetition when programming because you got to be able to know a lot code in a very short amount of time, sure books websites and cheat sheets help, but it is all about memorization. Of course that is where people like me are caught up in because of the lack of repetition and a somewhat bad memory in trying to remember all the various programming languages and what not.

So with what I have just said there is more to it then basic foundations, reinforcing what you know and keeping up with the current trends, but being able to memorize as much as oyu can and stuff.

[Bluebear]

Probably none of them. I find myself in the "Looking for a coder"-group - so obviously I am not one of them. I am even further away from being a programmer. I admire people that are able to do things like this. People that go to school to learn it or/and learn it by themselves. It would never fit me.

[SaNJ]

I think being a coder is quite easier being a programmer...but I agree to the fact that one cannot become a programmer without initially being a coder....that is every programmer start from being a coder.
Because its quite awful to learn algorithms and language capabilities from some book or tutorial....the fast learning way is to be a coder that is read and analyse other's codes and understand the language capabilities and its powers and the approach to get maximum out of it. A person can learn faster by examining others codes and comparing them so as to which is better in which aspect. And now that person can decide his own approach quite easily and go about it.

But the eventually the result should become finally a programmer with uyour own ideas and algorithms. Yes being a programmer far being better than being a coder because as programmer u are forced to apply your brain tackling problems your way is always difficult but rewarding.

One thing more, I think more job prospects for both coders and programmers are about equal.But programmers much more powerful developers than coders.
So final words are every programmer starts as a coder.

[DeM0nFiRe]

I think I know where the OP is coming from. Where I usually hang out we would call a 'coder' a 'scripter'

A programmer would be someone who can take nothing but the language and start making a program. A Programmer codes to make programs. basically a programmer is the full on deal.

A coder would be someone who just modifies code or just uses Lua or RGSS or something like that to modify a game or some existing program.

Generally, a programmer can code but a coder can't program. It's like if you talk to someone who has done a whole lot of scripting or coding and then they have no clue about what Object-Oriented is.