The key here is "always". When I'm doing high level (resource) planning, I'll refer to programmers (which includes myself) as resources, because in that context

The key here is "always". When I'm doing high level (resource) planning, I'll refer to programmers (which includes myself) as resources, because in that context, that's what they are, part of the entire collection of people and things we need to achieve our goal. What other term do you expect managers to use for that? "People and stuff?" Or each role filled by a human separately, "programmers, testers, designers and inanimate objects"? For a profession obsessed with accurately and consistently naming things, we seem to be a bit over-sensitive when the "domain objects" include us...