The BLS classifies them as different roles. In essence: Software developers plan, computer programmers implement. Which in many cases might be the same person, but it has always been true that one person can hold multiple jobs.
That's not a distinction that actually exists in the real world. This makes me wonder what other made-up distinctions they are claiming in industries I'm less familiar with.
I've seen it. I personally think it is ill-conceived and I am not sure why any business would actually want to function that way, but it definitely exists. Of software developers and computer programmers combined, only around 5% are considered to be computer programmers, so it is already recognized in the data as something fairly unusual.