I think this is what I was getting at. I get the sense that the different types, maybe they can even be called factions, of programmer are slowly diverging. I'm not a historian, but I have an inkling that this mirrors similar trends in any newly emerging industry.

There is a difference, though, that it seems chromatic has been trying to articulate: software plays by different rules, because it is not tangible. It's generally not practical for the person drawing the designs for a housing tract to actually build the houses, but with software, the code is the design. The design and the implementation are essentially the same thing. Sure, people have come up with many methods of planning and designing software before the code is put in place, but at this stage in the game the code is the blue print. The planning and design that goes on in the software world is very general and high level. The true design, in the real sense of the word, is in the code.

I think this might change in the future, as we keep going higher and higher level, but even then it won't be the same as with physical production. The intangible nature of programming just makes it different. Perhaps I am undermining my own analogy here, but I think, in the software world, engineers and crafstmen can be one in the same.