It's a bit of an unfair comparison though. The problem and tool set were predefined before Knuth started. Also it's a problem that's particularly suited to Unix

It's a bit of an unfair comparison though. The problem and tool set were predefined before Knuth started. Also it's a problem that's particularly suited to Unix tools. There are many problems where Web might have resulted in the better solution. As a kid, I saw a program that computed the position of Moon in the sky given a location and time. That would probably be better solved with WEB than Unix pipes.