> On the other hand, it’s decidedly anti-Unix, arguably even more so than GNU utilities. When you have a design guideline – in this case, "Do one thing and do

> On the other hand, it’s decidedly anti-Unix, arguably even more so than GNU utilities. When you have a design guideline – in this case, "Do one thing and do it well" – then you must never forget that it's just a guideline, a means to an end, a tool to achieve your goal. If your guideline conflicts with or contradicts your goal, then the guideline is wrong – or should be ignored, at least. Otherwise, the guideline becomes an ideology, and ideologies can be harmful. I see this too often with various guidelines ("do one thing and do it well", "never use gotos", "linked lists are bad"), which are zealously repeated without understanding whether they make sense in that particular context. (I'm not saying this applies to you, this is a general observation)