> This is not a requirement for being a "programmer." It never has been.
Programmers program computers. We call them programmers because they program. If you can't write programs, you're not a programmer. What other definition of "programmer" could you possibly be using?
Why won't you acknowledge that web development is not about HTML+CSS only? Why are you insisting that web developers know these technologies and not JavaScript, and in effect do not program?
You're obviously not very familiar with web development. The one who you have in mind is called designer. He's as you say, although it's still very hard and important job.
Web developers are programming all day long. They use JS almost exclusively with occasional excursions to HTML-land, without (in principle) ever touching CSS.
I'm a backend developer, so you will probably agree that I'm a programmer and I know what programming is. Just last week I had to fix/rewrite something on a frontend. It was a routine which retried an AJAX request until it either succeeded or failed a given amount of times, but with a twist - it cycled through a list of URLs while retrying. That's a very simple problem, I know, but I really felt as if I was programming while doing this - don't tell me I wasn't. And given JavaScript peculiarities it was full of surprises and overall a rather pleasant experience.
Now, design and programming are really two different skillsets. One is clearly programming, another is maybe-somewhat-with-HTML5-and-CSS3-almost-programming. You're confusing them both into one and so your conclusions are equally confused. To summarize: I know too little about design to really argue, but web development is, of course, programming.
Still you are not writing a program though. Sure you are using algorithms, data structures but it is not a program. You are writing a helloworld.py while the real program is /usr/bin/python. I don't think you could a text file program unless it actually runs. Thus, not a programmer. If I write some code on paper, is it a program too?
Difference is just a word, I believe main issue is despising scripting languages.
> Programmers program computers. We call them programmers because they program.
You've yet to give a definition of "program" I cannot satisfy with HTML, CSS and Javascript. The notion of "non-trivial" is not rigorous.
> What other definition of "programmer" could you possibly be using?
This is what I am wondering, because by any rational examination of what you've presented you've refuted your own claim. HTML+CSS is turing complete, which in practice means I can "program" arbitrary logic in it. It is a dialect of computer programming heavily focused on displaying content, but clearly it can do things.
Clearly explain to me: why is making a modern webpage any different from writing a simple modern Ruby script? Or a trivial iPhone app, for that matter? Open up a nib file and you'll see a serialized object graph, heavily biased towards the presentation and its structure. Callbacks are annotated into the system. But you could make a "dumb" iPhone app without ever writing a single line of code, using drag and drop components and GUI clicks. Oh my, that seems even less like programming, but in many cases it's indistinguishable from programming.
You really need to step back and ask yourself, "What is the actual difference here?" Your primary justification so far has been about people, but your original claim was about what "programming" is. If a "programmer" is someone who programs computers and we cannot cleanly and clearly explain why webdev is not programming, then what?
And to be honest, it's sort of patronizing and discouraging to new users. HTML+CSS+JS is the most widely deployed, used, programed, customized, and maintained programming environment in human history. Most people will find their way to the discipline via web browsers now, just as most kids in my childhood did via BASIC (also a victim of aspersions like what you cast).
Methods change and evolve. Environments change and evolve. Most of all, requirements change and evolve.
Programmers program computers. We call them programmers because they program. If you can't write programs, you're not a programmer. What other definition of "programmer" could you possibly be using?