Who are you?

Internewbiate at best, actually.

Also, how is the weather in Nice?

Popisfizzy wrote:

Internewbiate at best, actually.

You're forgetting that people who call themselves a "coder" are inherently newbie, since a coder is a lower class than a programmer. An intermediate coder is roughly the equivalent of a very newbie programmer.

Kaioken wrote:

You're forgetting that strictly-speaking, out of common slang, a coder has nothing to do with programming. And in common slang however, it has the same meaning as 'programmer'.

I think Foomer's point is that if someone is using the term "coder" to describe themselves, it means they're only a newbie. A real programmer would never call themselves a coder. It's kinda like a cable guy calling himself a wiring monkey.

Lummox JR

"Coder" referring to programmer is slang, pure and simple, and the only reason it's a habit is because people ignorantly think that it's the proper word to use (the same reason that "iconer" is so !&$#% prevalent).

Any native English speaker will tell you this unless they don't know any better. There are a lot of stupid people, sadly.

Android Data wrote:

I have to disagree there; from what I have seen and heard, "coder" in English means the same as "programmer", except it takes fewer letters to type and has become a habit to use on BYOND.

"Coder" is not equivalent to "programmer" in English; it is however understandable to see how someone who does not speak it natively wouldn't know that. But, not knowing that is basically nothing unusual for non-programmers regardless--it's in common use on BYOND precisely because the folks using the term don't know any better.

English is my second language, and I have never heard of any true distinction between "coder" and "programmer". There have been people shunning me because of it, which I do not understand.

In Chasing Amy (a movie I actually don't like much) there's a bit in the beginning where two comic book artists are at a convention. Someone asks what their roles are in the team, and one of them says he inks in the lines. "Oh, you're a tracer," says the fan. The artist objects to this term, but it spreads around the crowd: He's just a tracer. He's nobody. The term "coder", where it can be applied to programming at all, connotes a lack of skill or knowledge, just basically plopping code into a box and letting it go. In the movie, the "tracer" is implied not to be an artist in his own right, just a guy who does grunt work for the real creative genius.

Programming is a high art, so anyone who reasonably can call themselves a programmer typically takes umbrage to being called a coder, and likewise to folks using the terms interchangeably. By much the same token, hackers dislike being confused with crackers just because clueless journalists and their readers/viewers don't know the difference.

I suppose that could be seen as elitist, but the distinction does matter to people. And when you see someone calling themselves a "coder" but meaning they're a programmer, typically it means they're so unworthy of the proper title that they don't even know the introductory lingo. It could of course also mean they're just not that well-versed in English to pick up on a subtle difference between two words that seem alike; for most of BYOND that isn't the case though.

As such, the reason I disagree is because non-native English speakers haven't been taken into consideration here.

I don't see the difference between teaching them the distinction and teaching it to anyone else.

Lummox JR

Lummox JR wrote:

"Coder" is not equivalent to "programmer" in English; it is however understandable to see how someone who does not speak it natively wouldn't know that.

Then I have been lied to.

I don't see the difference between teaching them the distinction and teaching it to anyone else.

At least we have a valid reason for not knowing the difference, especially given that looking up the word on Google has it tell me that it's a synonym for "programmer". =P

-- Data