toolsmith n.
The software equivalent of a tool-and-die specialist; one who
specializes in making the tools with
which other programmers create applications. Many hackers
consider this more fun than applications per se; to understand
why, see uninteresting. Jon
Bentley, in the "Bumper-Sticker Computer Science" chapter of his
book "More Programming Pearls", quotes Dick Sites from DEC as saying "I'd rather write programs to
write programs than write programs".