computer science vs computer programming?

What's the difference between Computer Science and Computer Programming? I've spent nearly all my experience with compsci writing programs and what not, and I certainly like it, but I feel like there's a higher level I could pursue, like the ideas precede concrete programming.

I suppose my question is, what does it mean to be a computer scientist?

EDIT: I've done some thinking, and I have a somewhat more specific question-- what's the difference between the stuff on this stackexchange and the stuff on the cstheory stackexchange?

In some countries, for example in Latinoamerica, I found this "mixing" of terms for careers related to Computer Science, but let's consider that this is not your case and I will venture to pinpoint some differences about CS and CP that you are looking for:

• Computer Science refers to the study of the theoretical part of the use of computers. Of course, that it has also its application part, but this is not directly related to programming. If you search for some articles in ACM you will find that there are a lot of authors that state that CS is not necessarily programming. If you choose this path you will be more studying topics more related to algorithms, math in its continuous and discrete flavors, statistics and so on. So I would dare to say that CS is more related to the fields I described before that only to programming.

• Computer Programming, as I saw in some Universities as I said before, is more related to the technical field (or IT field according to the ACM standards). For example in a career related to this field, you will learn about the differences between Java, C, Ruby, etc., and you will increase your skills of using those tools, but not necessarily you will get a grasp of the generalities that those languages share (for example in CS you have a course called Programming Languages that deal with that).

So bottom line, CS refers to algorithms, math, theory and applications of this theory; while CP is related to the technical aspects of the different IT tools.

StackExchange Computer Science Q#68417, answer score: 3