How interesting that a small comment could cause so much discussion.
The comments on "programming multimedia" were made on past experience, and I offer the following addition: If we are to use technology in an educational setting, then it is US (the instructional technologists, interactive designers, etc.) who will make it a success regardless of the technology. My comment about yellow teeth, etc., was related to having "been there and done that" so many times before and asking myself if you could be "a color monitor programmer," "a hypermedia programmer," "a CAL programmer," "a CBT programmer," "a web programmer," or a "multimedia programmer." Having reviewed the various definitions (I checked out The Idiot's Guide to Multimedia and CD-ROM) it would appear that YES, you can be a multimedia programmer--but it depends on how you view the word.
During the weekend we had another issue raise itself which is perhaps more significant, and that is the difference between the educational practice (research theory) and the industry implementation (development). While you would hope that commercial applications reflect the theory and research from academic institutions, it would appear that the issues significant to each group (I'm lucky or unlucky to inhabit both worlds) are quite different--and yet often any discussion of Educational Technology is assumed to be generally applicable (and that's a generalization). Perhaps someone might like to comment.