Which are you: Programmer or Coder?
Is coder just a newer word for the term programmer? No.
Before I go further, if you choose to classify yourself, don’t think I’m saying one is better than another. They are two different things. But they do have an interdependent connection.
Me? I am a programmer.
I can’t say, “I am a programmer, not a coder”, however. Why? One is a subset of the other.
All programmers are coders, but not all coders are programmers.
My guess is many of you reading this are programmers, but call yourselves coders. You would not be wrong in doing so.
Me? I, therefore, am a coder too.
Word definitions can change over time by their usage. Many words or their usage, which may have once been deemed incorrect or unacceptable, are now accepted. When I was younger (oops, did I say that?) we used to say, “you can’t say ain’t because ain’t ain’t a word.” It’s still a subject of controversy. A pet peeve of mine is the interchanging of the words nauseous and nauseated. Most people say, “It makes me nauseous” when something makes their stomach queasy and sick. Today that’s more or less accepted. We as a culture are re-defining the term nauseous by the way we repeatedly use it. In my day (oops, not again?), one would say, “it makes me nauseated.”
