Q:

What is Computer Science?

This meta question is intended to be a place to direct people who ask what is Computer Science and answer misconceptions about it.
What is Computer Science?

A:

It seems to be the case that our biggest problem is separating CS from related disciplines to some extent. I think this can be best achieved by analogy to fields people have more intuition for. 
I have attempted to create such a table:
Software        Buildings         Generalprogrammer           construction worker     performs assigned tasks
software developer   foreman                 translates plans into work assignments
                                               and monitors workers
software engineer    architect               makes plans and develops principles
                                               than ensure some level of quality of
                                               the plans.
computer scientist   structural engineer,    develops and analyses methods/techniques
                     material scientist        for the above to use.
theoretical computer                         develops models and verifies principles
scientist            physicist                 that lead to and support new methods
                                               and techniques.
mathematician        mathematician           provides means to deal with models
                                               in a unified, abstract fashion.
                                               Develops meta models.
[LaTeX source]
Of course, such a table would have to be decorated with appropriated disclaimers: "This is no attempt at defining either notion rigorously; it is only a rough analogy to relate to general knowledge. The same person can perform more than one role. Some tasks may be associated with more than one role." and so on.
What do you think, can an analogy clarify what we have trouble defining clearly?
Do you have other/better analogies?

A:

Computer Science is the science that studies computation and related issues. It has strong connections with other disciplines, particularly with: mathematics, computer and electronic engineering. 
There are various lists of topics which are considered part of computer science:

ACM Computing Classification System 
ACM Special Interest Groups
arXiv Subject Areas

which among others include: 

discrete-mathematics, combinatorics, complexity-theory, algorithms, data-structures, computational-geometry, formal-languages (and automata theory), logic, computability, information-theory, numerical-analysis, symbolic-computation, cryptography, security, 
  artificial-intelligence, machine-learning, computer-vision, computational-linguistics, natural-language-processing, knowledge-representation-reasoning, robotics, 
  computational-engineering (and science), computation-finance, 
  databases, information-retrieval, 
  distributed-computing, parallel-computing, neural-computing, evolutionary-computing,
  algorithmic-game-theory, information-networks (and social-networks),
  computer-graphics, multimedia, sound, 
  computer-architecture (and hardware-architecture), computer-networks (and internet architecture), operating-systems,
  programming-languages, software-engineering, human-computer-interaction

A:

Misquoting Justice Potter Stewart:

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description computer science; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But we know it when we see it ... so if in doubt, ask on meta.

