[TUHS] Proliferation of options is great simplification of pipes, really?

[Dan Stromberg]

On Sun, Feb 21, 2021 at 7:33 PM G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson at gmai

>
> > The groff program allows to control the whole groff system by command
> > line options. This is a great simplification in comparison to the
> > classical case (which uses pipes only).
>
> What strikes _me_ about the above is the awful Denglish in it.  I fixed
> this back in 2017 and the correction shipped as part of groff 1.22.4 in
> December 2018.
>
I like the easy composability of pipes, but I don't mind some options.

I don't like the huge, all-purpose applications called web browsers nearly
as much.  They strike me as Very un-unixy.  But much can be justified by
not having to get users to download a client application, and not having to
get sysadmins to punch a hole through their firewalls.

I'd say it's neither, and reflects (1) the limitations of the Unix
> filter model, or at least the linear topology of Unix pipelines[1]
>
I don't think they have to be linear:
http://joeyh.name/code/moreutils/ (see the unfortunately-named "pee"
utility)
and:
https://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~strombrg/mtee.html

Full disclosure: I wrote mtee.
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