Exactly. I mean, what will you do differently at work tomorrow if your job title is changed from "Systems Programmer" to "Application Programmer"? Approximately nothing.
Is it any more productive than fighting over who got the best text editor?
The text editor discussion is probably more productive!
System programming is about a program being used by another program unlike an application which is being used by a person. A programmer too will not use that program but use an application to develop a program which will then use that program. This makes system programming distinct from application programming in purpose, philosophy and reality.
Contrast this to a GUI program a user interacts with. Its purpose is dependant on its relationship to the user. The philosophy is that the user could click on anything on the screen at any time, so the program had better be ready! The reality is that users live in their own world, free from all concerns of the silicon world, except one - power. They may perceive memory pressure in the form of slowness, but they don't feel it the way the operating system does.
Systems:
- Lacks a GUI.
- There are technical details.
- Doesn't compete with applications.
- Memory pressure is an issue.
Applications:
- Has a GUI.
- Need to be responsive.
- Power usage is important.
- Memory pressure results in slowness.
I don't think we got any closer to a useful answer.
Of course it's fuzzy and unimportant, they're just words for categories we've made up, and didn't even make a very good job of it.
Even if we did make it clear which is which, what's the gain from being able to make a clear distinction? Is it any more productive than fighting over who got the best text editor?