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When I’m working with Unix utilities like grep or doing stuff with xargs... it genuinely feels like I’m playing with legos. I feel like this is trying to argue

When I’m working with Unix utilities like grep or doing stuff with xargs... it genuinely feels like I’m playing with legos. I feel like this is trying to argue for more “consulting surgeons” when we need more “tooling machinists” who know how to make a good LEGO block.

deleted 6y ago
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vorpalhex 6y ago
I think the author is discussing large existing apps, for instance connecting something like an externally built authentication layer to an existing user management suite. It's not just plug and play but a series of careful surgical moves. Obviously shuffling data around is a different (easier) beast, especially for one off tasks.
BubRoss 6y ago
That's because they work on the same data format, have no state, no branching, single input, single output and can be executed serially without needing to be looped. They also don't have dependency problems when installed as a distribution. If that wasn't enough, you can examine each stage by writing it to a file or piping it to display program of your choice. If they work for what you are doing then using commands and pipes are great, because they avoid a tremendous amount of what makes software difficult.
catalogia 6y ago
xargs/etc are like arcane legos, where there's more than one brick vendor in the mix with different vendor's versions of the brick supporting different features, or the same feature but implemented in different ways. And even if you're only dealing with one brick vendor, there's still little uniformity in the interfaces of different bricks. GNU vs BSD xargs, -0 vs -print0, etc. True lego have the property that if two parts snap together, it's a valid configuration. That's definitely not the case for unix utilities. You have to read a manual for each sort of brick.
- buzzkillington 6y ago
  I love unix for what it was. But it made a lot of concessions for 70s hardware that we're stuck with. It is rather unfortunate for us that everything that's come afterwards has been in some way even worse.

deleted 6y ago

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vorpalhex 6y ago

I think the author is discussing large existing apps, for instance connecting something like an externally built authentication layer to an existing user management suite. It's not just plug and play but a series of careful surgical moves. Obviously shuffling data around is a different (easier) beast, especially for one off tasks.

BubRoss 6y ago

That's because they work on the same data format, have no state, no branching, single input, single output and can be executed serially without needing to be looped. They also don't have dependency problems when installed as a distribution. If that wasn't enough, you can examine each stage by writing it to a file or piping it to display program of your choice. If they work for what you are doing then using commands and pipes are great, because they avoid a tremendous amount of what makes software difficult.

catalogia 6y ago

xargs/etc are like arcane legos, where there's more than one brick vendor in the mix with different vendor's versions of the brick supporting different features, or the same feature but implemented in different ways. And even if you're only dealing with one brick vendor, there's still little uniformity in the interfaces of different bricks. GNU vs BSD xargs, -0 vs -print0, etc. True lego have the property that if two parts snap together, it's a valid configuration. That's definitely not the case for unix utilities. You have to read a manual for each sort of brick.

buzzkillington 6y ago
I love unix for what it was. But it made a lot of concessions for 70s hardware that we're stuck with. It is rather unfortunate for us that everything that's come afterwards has been in some way even worse.