[sevensor]

I’ve worked as a non software engineer with non software technicians, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the differences. Most of the work done by engineers was also quite repetitive; in our case the big difference had more to do with whether you turned a wrench during the day, which mainly resulted from differences in your degree of formal education. I was quite junior at the time, however. Where experienced engineers made a difference was in their ability to change how we used the machines, where technicians generally did not. (Sometimes they did, and jumped onto the engineer or management track as a result.)

All of which is to say that I formulate a spectrum from technicians through engineers, to scientists. Technicians use technology, engineers devise new technologies using scientific facts about the world, and scientists discover new science. All three parties end up spending a lot of time on repetitive tasks, however.

Perhaps what makes computer science unique here is that it’s a science of automation, and as such it actually offers us the opportunity to reduce repetitive work.