You're right, but for what it's worth, the folks that I've taught the nuance of pipes seem to really only "get it" after pointing them to /proc/PID/fd* and havi

You're right, but for what it's worth, the folks that I've taught the nuance of pipes seem to really only "get it" after pointing them to /proc/PID/fd* and having them cat in/out the files there. It directly leads into much deeper understandings of what "everything is a file" means.