When I started, we had to make the box and the circuit boards before programming it. Mostly computers were hard-wired. (1960's - 1970's) Differentiation in labour has happened since then. I see the Developer as an Application Developer. This is applying existing software to manipulate information for business production. A software engineer makes new software, or embeds software into an engineering project. Engineers or Ingenieur. Obviously electronic systems are full of things called engines, but in Germany for instance, engineering is to do with being ingenious. Metaphor: An artist uses the brush and paper. But someone had to make these things. The developer used the existing tools and materials to produce a business benefit. An Architect makes the factory. The factory is then used to make the product. Programmer is a rather dated term when operating instructions had to be programmed or 'fed in' to a business computer to make it work in a certain way. We now tend to use the terms correctly. Operating systems: These are made by engineers. Vertical programs: These are the software platforms like Visual Studio. Again: made by engineering. Business Applications: Using Visual Studio, a developer makes a simpler custom application for a customer.