> If "programs ought to do one thing and do it well", then why aren't they just library functions in a scripting language? In many cases, the command line tool

> If "programs ought to do one thing and do it well", then why aren't they just library functions in a scripting language? In many cases, the command line tool is a wrapper for an awesome library, and the awesome library has bindings for multiple scripting languages. So in many cases, there's a command, and a library and yeah, you can import the library into your favorite scripting language (or often compiled language, too). In the end, you could argue that all languages are just an abstraction for system calls anyway. So why the love for the Unix shell? One line is faster for the user than 23 lines. It's the same reason we use compiled languages instead of assembly most of the time. The same applies to using python of javascript instead of C or rust. Less lines of code. Bigger abstractions. Problem is solved and the work is done faster. > I still don't see the beauty. The whole "collection of small programs that do one thing well" thing is just one way to do it, and there are plenty of examples of programs that are super successful that don't heed that advice in any way at all. In the end, Unix has held up for a remarkably long time... seems like there should be a better way to do it, but it's hard to argue with Unix success in the wild.