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 would rather write programs to help me write programs than write programs." (Edited by FAQS.ORG to correct the quote).