Frontend developer just implements the GUI, using the provided design, specification and consultations with colleagues/client for additional information.
Frontend engineer first measures the client and all the monitors by using a Vernier caliper, calculates their mass, acceleration and other parameters.
Engineers reason
In a blog post Dominic differentiates engineer from programmer by explaining that an engineer, “…can reason about his subject.”
The engineer knows the subject very well — this is a given. A front-end developer should know his subject very well, too, but he doesn’t necessarily “reason about” his subject and try to gain a deep, intuitive understanding of how his subject works.
Developers do
The front-end developer doesn’t “reason about” HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The developer writes the code, and it works well (hopefully). It should be DRY, scalable, performant, etc.
The developer is a brick-layer, a drywaller, or an roofer. The developer does things, but not necessarily with the understanding and reasoning behind it. Does the brick layer necessarily know why the walls are 8 feet tall; does the drywaller know why the walls in the main corridor are 12 feet long?
A front-end engineer understands the mechanics behind the code
The front-end engineer, through reasoning, isn’t just doing tasks. The front-end engineer knows why she wrote her code the way that she did. She takes stacking context into consideration when she uses transforms. She considers specificity when she picks a CSS methodology. She thinks about prototypal inheritance when she picks a JavaScript pattern. She considers the performance gains and losses between for-in and forEach.
Front-end developers can write good code. Front-end engineers can explain how good code works. They understand browser mechanics; how the browser parses CSS, forms the DOM, and compiles JavaScript. Front-end developers are more likely to fix things. Front-end engineers are more likely to solve things.
A front-end engineer creates
Engineers design materials, structures, and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost[1]. In the world of front-end, the starkest contrast I can provide is that a front-end engineer can create plugins, tools, frameworks, utilities, patterns, and methodologies.
A developer can use plugins, tools, frameworks, utilities, patterns, and methodologies.
The reason that front-end engineers can create these things is because the engineer “reasons about the code”. The engineer can evaluate a problem and design a solution or system that conforms to the limitations around it.
Top comments (12)
A coder is an implementator.
An engineer is a designer.
But both reason their code, do not make us coders dumb, thank you.
Thanks for your perception, I wanted to compare both roles and figure out what to focus, by the way, I am a coder, too.
Coders reason their code too.
Of course, Writers reason their sentences.
Then, paragraph 4, line 2.
Therefore, I think there needs a reasoning code, does not necessarily define one category, either coder or programmer, personally, coding as it is an artwork, thus, I was curious why I have to know the engineering part, that is the point I posted in terms of the difference.
Most of the time, engineers rely on software whose engineering part is completely unknown for them.
You only need to know the state of the art, to not lose time in things that are already working. And even that usually takes a looooooot of time currently, sadly... I never learnt assembly language, but I am fine with my algorythms anyway.
Good to know, I am going to work on my project, and figure out what is right for me.
Sure.
This looks like it came from here
quora.com/What-is-the-difference-b...
I collected the information from the link!
Don't make up nonsense of yourself.
Engineer - is a person with higher education and a diploma to prove it.
Coders and others are those without a higher education.
Both of them are developers.