I've heard this story before, but I can't shake the impression that a lot of it is just luck that the problem is something that lends itself very well to a shel

I've heard this story before, but I can't shake the impression that a lot of it is just luck that the problem is something that lends itself very well to a shell pipeline. One thing that I'd love to hear more people talk about is how to apply shell-style composition to settings where it's not so obvious, or how to create new programs that lend themselves well to this programming style.