Programming is the tool you use. CS is the study of all that is possible to achieve in this computational domain, how to achieve it efficiently, the limitations

Programming is the tool you use. CS is the study of all that is possible to achieve in this computational domain, how to achieve it efficiently, the limitations that you will have to deal with, ...etc In the physical domain I think a more apt analogy would be mechanical engineering vs. fabrication. Some nuances: 1. by CS one can understand both the practice of using CS principles to design modern efficient computational systems, and also CS research. 2. programming alone would not get you very far, so a lot of people normally mean, programming + database knowledge + systems design when they are talking about somebody who does programming.