Man if you actually use proper http status codes instead of returning 200 to every single request no matter the outcome, you’re already better than a lot of “senior” developers. If you’ve written any amount of half-useful readmes or docs or even comments, you’re well above the average. If you’re aware that git has more than 3 commands, you’re well on your way to godhood.

I use python exclusively when I want to quickly throw some shit together that nobody’s ever gonna spend any time maintaining, so that tracks.

Programming is just one part of the whole process of creating software. There’s more than just writing code. There’s also planning, design, architecture, testing, deployment, maintenance, etc. All that is engineering. Unsurprisingly, people with software engineering training tend to have a more complete idea as to what goes into it all.

Coding and programming is about writing the code. You get on a computer and type away.

Writing code is just one part of a bigger whole. It takes more than writing code to make software. Someone needs to think about the architecture, infrastructure, planning, management, maintenance, deployment, r&d… That’s software engineering. It’s a much broader concept than just editing text files.