What is the difference between Computer Science and Software Engineering?

Question

I was spurred to ask the question by an answer I saw for a question on Software Engineering Videos. Here's the answer:

As an aside, be careful what you're linking here. Software Engineering and Computer Science are very different disciplines. Software Engineering encompasses the software development lifecycle (including methodologies and process), modeling, communication, enterprise SE culture, etc. and is much, much less concerned with code, algorithms, efficiency, and the like. link|flag

answered May 12 at 16:03 JoshJordan 1,735●5●16

and this was my comment:

I have to disagree somewhat. Software Engineering is a sub-discipline of Computer Science. One of the sub-areas of Software Engineering is Construction, which is all about code. Please refer to www.swebok.org. – LWoodyiii 4 mins ago [delete this comment]

I do think algorithms fall outside of Software Engineering, but object-oriented programming, secure programming, and the like do not.

Some have said this is a duplicate, but Computer engineering is about the hardware and Software engineer is about the software.

Answer 1

Computer Science is more theory than hands-on; Software Engineering is still theory, but more hands on; Computer Information Systems is more hands-on and less theory, and Management Information Systems is all hands-on with very little theory.

Answer 2

As great computer science Dijkstra famously said, "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”. So, saying that software engineering (which does have to do with computers) is a sub-discipline of computer science, is like saying which optics (which does have to do with telescopes) is a sub-discipline of astronomy;-).

Me, I care about telescopes, oops I mean computers, so clearly I'm not an astronomer, oops I mean a computer scientist;-) [whatever wikipedia insists on saying about me;-)], exactly as I once wrote in my blog.

Answer 3

In the most reductionist and simplistic of terms: computer science is theory, and software engineering is practice. This is similar to the relationship between, for example, chemistry (bonds, valence shells, the periodic table, quantum theory) and chemical engineering (industrial production, purity yield, finding the best material given a set of constraints).

Answer 4

Well, all of these disciplines are just a subdisciplines of Phylosophy.

Answer 5

For the spirit of stack overflow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Engineering