[winestock]

>What ever happened to the Unix principle of doing one thing and doing it well?

Rob Pike has the answer for you. http://interviews.slashdot.org/story/04/10/18/1153211/rob-pi...

A Slashdot user named sczimme asked Pike this question: Given the nature of current operating systems and applications, do you think the idea of "one tool doing one job well" has been abandoned? If so, do you think a return to this model would help bring some innovation back to software development?

Rob Pike's reply was: Those days are dead and gone and the eulogy was delivered by Perl.

[jeff_marshall]

I think there is still some nuance available.

Perl is great for succinct syntax, which is something I admire (who doesn't appreciate backtick for invoking another program?)

This same brevity is valuable in other contexts, but the challenge is in doing it and understanding the implications. So long as such mechanisms don't introduce hidden complexity (e.g. ';' in bash or it's equivalent), succint syntax has my vote. Working in C at a low level and still having to deal with integer overflow shows me that there is definately a middle ground w.r.t. expressivity and details. I'd be happy to see progress in this area.

[dwc]

The ideas are still useful today, surprisingly often, despite Pike's quote.

[ori_b]

I read that as "People did't care, as you can see by their choices"