Do you know there are people who treat programmers as 'high-class labourers' ? To them they feel programming is equivalent to a labourer doing all those menial tasks. Exception is only programmers get paid higher. They feel doing project mgmt, database mgmt, system analysis, product specialist etc are more value-added IT positions.
I don't subscribe to that idea definitely becuz only when a person has truly done some intensive programming will know it is no menial task. It is actually a brain-intensive task and unfortunately it does not get appreciated or respected that often.
Having a Programmer's Day in a way is a silent tribute to all those toiling programmers world-wide! :P