LASIK is a surgery where they cut a flap of your cornea, lay it aside, then use laser to burn away corneal tissue, then lay the flap back down. Idea is to reshape the cornea to provide vision correction, replacing contacts or glasses. Result is loss of 1/2 of corneal nerves, which makes dry eye worse. Other problems include loss of night vision, visual distortions, etc.
With cataract removal, the natural lens is removed and artificial lenses are typically implanted - tends to give much better results than LASIK.