No, that's not even remotely an accurate analogy. Computer science is a branch of applied mathematics; not a physical science. Engineers need to have a basic understanding of core physics principles in order to do good work. That analogy doesn't hold with respect to programming and CS. A better analogy is that CS is to programming as number theory is to arithmetic: a person doesn't have to know what a "field" is in order to compute 2+2, or to be able to solve incredibly complex computing problems in general.

I'd split Computer Science in two - the basic stuff and the cutting edge. While most CS graduates have the former, they are ignorant of the latter, unless they read up research papers.

It is good to have a foundation, and coding alone doesn't give it, hence the need to learn basic CS, but probably nobody can keep up with the cutting edge of it, being so vast and dynamic.

> I'd split Computer Science in two - the basic stuff and the cutting edge. While most CS graduates have the former, they are ignorant of the latter, unless they read up research papers.

That's pretty much true of graduates in any field of science, not just computer science. A BS is a fine grounding in the basics of a field, getting a grip on -- usually some slice of -- the cutting edge is something you do by reading current research in the field.

> Computer science is a branch of applied mathematics; not a physical science

I would disagree. Whilst CS did originally branch from mathematics, nowadays it is an interdisciplinary subject and to call it a branch of applied maths would exclude huge areas of CS such as HCI.

That's the problem with analogies, they are analogies.

There are good analogies and bad analogies, though. Good ones use relationships that actually have common elements that are meaningful; that's how they work to convey information.

Mathematics is a branch of applied Computer Science

That doesn't ring true for me. I'd say CompSci is to programming as CivEng is to construction.

Depends on what component of compsci you are talking about. I worked with several profs that have never worked on large software projects. They spent their lives constructing proofs and the closest thing to programming they would do with any frequency is update their webpage.

Software engineering is to programming as civil engineering is to construction. Software engineering is just a small slice of computer science.

Computer science is to programming as chemistry is to baking

To extend the explanation.

Computer science and chemistry = terminology and numbers.

Baking and programming = structure, creativity and taste.