The Unix Way and I
@FND said:
The most important difference is the role and handling of data on Unix; data is freely and naturally shared between applications
Data (or “content” in the narrative world) takes the privileged position in the Unix world. We work with data with many different tools, lining those tools up in pipelines, each tool doing one thing well.
The same principle drives the open literate web: Content is king, moving freely and openly amongst transforming tools that may be assembled as we like.
Hyperbolically speaking:
- On the good web the URI is the thing. On Unix the file is the thing. Same thing.
- On the bad web, on Windows, on iOS the app is the thing.
We determine the world we are building by the tools we choose to create. Do we want the world that drives traffic to websites and sells apps, or the world where we evolve and synthesize information into new knowledge?