What you say is congruent with the hypothesis of how the term came to be used. The hypothesis is that the activity of programming digital devices has a stratif

What you say is congruent with the hypothesis of how the term came to be used. The hypothesis is that the activity of programming digital devices has a stratification of status based on the level of abstraction it uses (higher level design aspects deemed more important than writing the code). At higher level of abstraction (thinking about the design of a programming language or an operating system) the task may resemble true engineering (though most actual engineers probably never design new types of buildings or bridges). But in order not create tension the title is propagated to all programmers. I agree with you there is fundamental unity in the practice. Before one can abstract nail making one must make at least a few nails. But I was really curious about the growing using of the label "engineer" as it seems to play precisely on these perceptions of importance and status.