8
csh, pipes, and find
Power Tools for Power Fools
I have a natural revulsion to any operating system that shows so little
planning as to have to named all of its commands after digestive
noises (awk, grep, fsck, nroff).—UnknownThe Unix “power tool” metaphor is a canard. It’s nothing more than a slo-
gan behind which Unix hides its arcane patchwork of commands and ad
hoc utilities. A real power tool amplifies the power of its user with little
additional effort or instruction. Anyone capable of using screwdriver or
drill can use a power screwdriver or power drill. The user needs no under-
standing of electricity, motors, torquing, magnetism, heat dissipation, or
maintenance. She just needs to plug it in, wear safety glasses, and pull the
trigger. Most people even dispense with the safety glasses. It’s rare to find
a power tool that is fatally flawed in the hardware store: most badly
designed power tools either don’t make it to market or result in costly law-
suits, removing them from the market and punishing their makers.Unix power tools don’t fit this mold. Unlike the modest goals of its
designers to have tools that were simple and single-purposed, today’s Unix
tools are over-featured, over-designed, and over-engineered. For example,
ls, a program that once only listed files, now has more than 18 different