I’m slightly ashamed to reveal that I only recently became aware of the Unix Philosophy so-called (hat-tip to stud Josh Heling @jrheling). I say ashamed because contained in the Unix Philosophy are things I preach on a daily basis about how complexity can be achieved in human-made systems.
This relates to your previous article about sources of variety and importing vs. generating locally. I have to import (buy) a tools because I don't have the ability to generate them locally. Each one of those tools generally does one thing very well, but I can combine the output of the different tools in new combinations and even use them to create new tools for repetitive tasks. There might be a jig I could buy that already does what I need to do, but it will never be as good as the jig I create using my existing tools.
I've been using UNIX since the early 90s and that is the way the tools on UNIX work. I have to admit as well that I have never made the connection to other settings and processes outside of computing.
Doing Many Things by Doing One Thing
This relates to your previous article about sources of variety and importing vs. generating locally. I have to import (buy) a tools because I don't have the ability to generate them locally. Each one of those tools generally does one thing very well, but I can combine the output of the different tools in new combinations and even use them to create new tools for repetitive tasks. There might be a jig I could buy that already does what I need to do, but it will never be as good as the jig I create using my existing tools.
I've been using UNIX since the early 90s and that is the way the tools on UNIX work. I have to admit as well that I have never made the connection to other settings and processes outside of computing.