[asdflkj]

Programming is only an impressive-sounding "skillset" and not a simple skill, like riding a bicycle (at least in its rudimentary form), because of how awful the interfaces are between simple code you write and things happening that make a difference in your life. Maybe this problem will eventually be solved not by a better Linux UI philosophy, but by things like Heroku.

"A better UI philosophy" wouldn't even have to be anything new. It's just the classic modular Unix way--the thing that makes shell scripts so easy and satisfying. It should have been extended to GUI. I would guess that someone tried, but it didn't catch on. The idea is too obvious.