The UNIX abstraction

• One is not restricted to files/processes on the local machine
  • tr -dc '[:alpha:]' < /dev/urandom | ssh localhost dd conv=lcase
• One is not restricted to text
  • ssh -fY localhost xterm
• Scripts (both shell and python) can be saved to file to become processes (units of logic) themselves
• Shell scripts generally connect and group existing tools
• These tools can be thought of as a collection of specific mini languages
  • sed, bc, gnuplot, tr, ...
    (
    echo 'plot "-" with dots'
    echo -e "import random\nfor i in xrange(100000): print random.uniform(0,1)" |
    python
    ) | gnuplot -persist
• python allows you to write general tools