You do get to call yourself that, though. This is a bit like saying "irregardless is not a word" when it's in the dictionary now. Calling yourself a "programmer" will be detrimental to your career, so why do it?
> Calling yourself a "programmer" will be detrimental to your career,
Ah, yes. There is the crux of the issue, isn't it?
People called themselves Engineers to advance their careers artificially (sounds really nice and impressive, etc).
Now, everyone is an Engineer, making the Engineer word have significantly less meaning. Today, a Software Engineer is largely a Software Developer of 10 years ago.
Just like economic inflation - title inflation devalues titles, which causes people to inflate their own titles further to stand out once again - which becomes a negative feedback loop.
