>I once had someone ask me if I was a software developer or just a programmer. It seems everyone has their own idea what programmer, systems/analyst, applications developer, programmer/analyst, and software engineer (among others) means. Especially those not in the IT field!

The roots of this confusion are old already. In the years of big iron, each manufacturer had its (aka their :) own system of job descriptions. When I was a system manager on a VAX, I met someone who learned the stuff on an IBM 360, and after some explaining he translated me into "ah, you're a system programmer". IMO, "manager" made more sense, because that part of my job had very little to do with programming (actually very little work to do at all), it was more about knowing how system worked and jumping in when shi* happened. But then, you had to be a programmer to be able to do that...

Maybe in another 20 years we'll be extinct as a profession, but we'll at least have a worked out system of job names :).