Sometimes, not always. People call themselves "engineer" a lot, but have no idea what "engineering" really is, which is more of a focus on the process than the technology. Therefore, developer and programmer are theoretically distinct from "software engineer" in strict terms. Too bad no official certification process exists for software engineers as does other fields of engineering.
I agree that it's too bad that there's no official licensure process (at least in the US). Strangely enough, when I asked on HN and reddit there seemed to be a lot of hostility to the idea. [1][2]
Titles should correspond to different things. But the lack of an enforced standard makes them meaningless. The actual practice in the workplace will have you doing the same thing. The practice of creation.
It will mess up the count if creators are divided by nonstandard titles.
