
California-based IT professional Darren Pham works as a systems engineer and event management team member for eBay in San Jose. In addition, Darren Pham is enrolled in UC Berkeley’s Coding Boot Camp.
The full-stack web development boot camp teaches a range of technologies, including HTML, MongoDB, and MERN Stack. To many people, coding and programming mean the same thing. However, the two terms are not interchangeable.
The word “coding” refers to the specific process of creating codes in a language a computer can understand. Specifically, coding is the creation of codes in binary language, a series of ones and zeroes.
All commands must be translated into binary so the computer processor can understand them. This requires the use of a text editor and basic knowledge of a programming language.
However, programmers create more than code. While coders follow specific instructions to write code in binary, programmers use their analytical skills and imagination to solve various problems by writing data structures and algorithms.
This requires high-level thinking and in-depth knowledge of computer systems. To operate effectively, programmers also need to understand coding. Because of this, all programmers are coders, though the reverse is not true.