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Comment by p_nathan | Hacker News Reader

There's sort of the "Computer Science" vs. "Software Engineering" difference going on there.

No, this is an overblown but common thing for people to say. Both sides do science, just some of us do science on abstract systems where in mind analysis is appropriate and others do science in less abstract systems where it is appropriate to experiment earlier.

Engineering on the other hand, is defined by an exemplary focus on good reliable design a system. Engineers often run tests as part of their work, but don't typically run experiments. (The difference, by the way, is that one can fail a test, whereas with a good experiment you succeed in showing something no matter your results.)

Please refrain from buying into the notion that science must be done only in worlds of abstraction and science done in less abstract systems must be labelled engineering. The use of the scientific method is what distinguishes science from engineering. My research requires me to do both at times.

Engineers often do pure experiments. It was EEs that came up with ROC curves, and good data sheets for electronic devices commonly show histograms and statistics for operating parameters. Hard drive optimization is largely about measuring the data density versus signal-to-noise ratio curve, whatever shape it happens to be, then picking a suitable error correcting code. Chemical process optimization is balls-out experimentation, especially when compounds insist on crystallizing in inconvenient forms. Civil engineers measure degradation to know when bridges need attention.

I think the difference is that engineers must often be satisfied with boring things that must be useful, while scientists aspire to interesting things that may be useless.

Since we have nowhere to go but more pedantic, I argue that engineers are not infrequently called upon to do science, just as many scientists are often called upon to do engineering.

Whether you call yourself an engineer or a scientist I would agree, has a lot to do with whether your goal at the end of the day is to produce something that works or something that fascinates. As someone who has the luxury to have a job doing the latter, I don't stop seeing myself as a scientist even when I happen to be doing some engineering work on one of my experiments.

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