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Comment by mxscho | Hacker News Reader

In Europe, "Computer Science" is translated with a word that is a mix of "information" and "mathematics". University course names are:

> [...] informatique (French), Informatik (German), informatica (Italian, Dutch), informática (Spanish, Portuguese), informatika (Slavic languages and Hungarian) or pliroforiki (πληροφορική, which means informatics) in Greek. Similar words have also been adopted in the UK (as in the School of Informatics of the University of Edinburgh). In the U.S., however, informatics is linked with applied computing, or computing in the context of another domain. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science#Etymology

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That is true but in french at least "informatique" means both "computer science" (for example you can study "informatique" at university) and "anything related to computers". "What's your line of work?": a DBA, sysadmin, software developer, computer scientist, etc. may all answer simply "informatique". A series of books for beginners about Excel, Word, Internet, etc. may be called "Collection informatique".

Or if, say, you have issues delivering something on time to a client (no matter the domain), you can always invoke a "bug informatique".

So "informatique" means and is used, at least in french, much, much, much more than just "computer science".

In a way it's even worse than in english: at least "science" is added to "computer" in english and it's kinda self-explanatory. In french everything is in the same basket: from someone doing its Ph.D. to someone having a lesson to learn how to use the mouse... It's all "informatique".

Same applies in spanish (at least were I live)

In Germany, anything computer-related is subsumed under "Informatik".

- Students learning to use MS Office in school? Informatik.

- People fixing printers and replacing your harddrive? Informatik.

- System administrators managing a datacenter? Informatik.

- Data scientist applying deep learning techiques? Informatik.

- University professor trying to prove P==NP? Informatik.

Honestly, I envy the Americans for their destinction between "computer science" (CS) and "information technology" (IT). Even if computer science is not really about computers.

It depends on the context. A university degree in Informatik will obviously not be about using MS Office. But 7th grade Informatik is. 10th grade Informatik introduced programming at my school. A trained job “Fachinformatiker für Systemadministration” will be about sysadmin work.

To 90% of the population, it's not "obvious" or we would not need T-Shirts labeled "I will not fix your computer for you".

Even a common programmer does not use any actual "computer science" 99% of the time and your typical sysadmin type probably never knew any. So it's simply wrong and confusing to use the same word for it.

In Finnish it's "tietojenkäsittelytiede" which consists of:

* "tieto": knowledge but also sometimes information or even data. Computer is "tietokone", knowledge machine (IMO "tieto" one of the worst words in Finnish due to the too broad scope which is why we also say "informaatio" and "data" these days)

* "käsittely": processing or handling

* "tiede": science

> In Europe, "Computer Science" is translated with a word that is a mix of "information" and "mathematics".

I don't think the "ics" in Informatics comes from "mathematics". It is more general: Aesthetics, Economics, Genetics, Linguistics, Physics, Statistics. It just means "the study of".

Wait a moment, the casual etimology of that word suggests (at least in spanish) a profession or a science, not "the sum of math and information" per se.

That same suffix, -atica, is also applied in "the mathematic" as the person (-atic) and "The Mathematics" as the science (el Matemático, las Matemáticas).

So lets say that you are a guy from two centuries ago. Someone tells you "this guy has studied informatics, he is the Informatic of the town". That would sound as if he "is versed in the study of information" rather than Computing.

Also, in Spain, instead of "the Computer" (the thing that computes, calculates), they call it "the Order-ator" (Ordenador, the thing that brings order).

Hmm, where are you from? I'm from norther Spain and those nouns don't suggest anything related to science for me. "El matemático" may be, but just because we associate it with a theoretical field, "Informático" is a practitioner of "Informática", as "Químico" is from "Química".

The computer term in Spain came from the French "ordinateur".

Ordenar has two meanings in Spanish:

- To command someone

- To sort

Both are related. In order to sort some set, you need order. And rules. Thus, "ordenador" has a lot of sense.

But if I was some guy from the 50's I'd translate computer science as "informática electrónica". (Electronic Informatics).

This wikipedia article is not very accurate. In Hungary "informatika" is usually used only for primary/secondary school subjects covering every-day IT tasks like document editing, typing, or sending email. The most commonly used names for CS courses are "számításelmélet" or "számítástudomány" which translate as "theory of computing" and "science of computing".

I would add that what is basically Computer Science curriculum is called “Programtervező Informatika” (roughly software engineering/modeling informatics~=compsci) while what is generally the same as Computer Science Engineering is called “Mérnökinformatika” (roughly engineering informatics).

But you are right that as a job description, “informatikus” is a more basic position than “programozó”=developer/software engineer, etc.

The original name of the university course in Italy was Scienze dell'Informazione, Information Sciences. I remember that my relatives were surprised and they were asking me if I was really about to study journalism (news "informano" / inform people in Italian.) I had to explain that it was about computers. Informatics, not journalism.

It used to be called Data Processing. I guess that confused people? Information Services was used for people who didn't know what data was. Before the GUI it was a lot harder.

In Japanese, "computer science" is directly translated as 計算機科学, which basically means "calculator science" - but the phrase is unusual, very rarely used.

Instead, more commonly seen are 情報工学 ("information engineering") or 情報科学 ("information science") - which is equivalent in meaning to "informatics".

There are at least four more-or-less equivalent Korean terms in common use. "컴퓨터 과학" (lit. computer science) and "컴퓨터 공학" (lit. computer engineering) is the most popular and frequently seen in universities. "전산학" (lit. [electronic] computing science) is less common but preferred by several prominent universities [1]. "정보과학" (lit. information science) is substantially unpopular than both but can be seen for example in several academic institutes like 한국정보과학회 (the Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers).

[1] There was even a significant attempt in 2000 to change the name of KAIST [2] CS department from "전산학" to "컴퓨터 과학" or similar. The attempt was unsuccessful and to this day its name remains "전산학(부)". Prof. Kwanggeun Yi has written a public letter [3] against the change.

[2] https://www.kaist.ac.kr/en/

[3] http://ropas.snu.ac.kr/~kwang/memo/name.html

In Swedish it is called "datavetenskap" i.e. "data science".

... and nevertheless it takes a lot of time to realize that it is not about computers.

But I agree, the European phrases are more honest to the content.

These words overlap with IT too much. I’m suspicious that they refer to Computer Science specifically, but please prove me wrong.

I always find it slightly irritating that my learned peers from the Information Technology team — they who rigorously study the practice of managing Jira installations, Windows 10 upgrades, finite Active Directory domains, and the long term effects of CISCO certifications — have land grabbed the English word Information.

In Romania the top higher education institution in CS is called "Automatics" emphasizing the applications.

In my country that would be related to "automatismos". Thus, industrial automatization, control engineering, automatic theorem demonstrations and so on. Self regulated machines.

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