Pipes are very cool and useful, but it's hard for me to understand this common worship of something like that. Yes, it's useful and elegant, but is it really the best thing since Jesus Christ?
It really is a question that I've been having for a long time. I didn't just say that to piss people off. I guess that's the risk you run of coming across when you try to insert yourself in a conversation where the other participants have already agreed on a set of shared opinions - this is great - and you try to question that common assumption/opinion.
I have honestly been questioning my own understanding of pipe, since I've failed to see the significance before; first I thought it was just `a | b` as in "first do a, then b". So then it just seemed like a notational way of composing programs. Then I thought, uh, ok say what? Composing things is the oldest trick in the conceptual book. But then I read more about it and saw that it had this underlying wiring of standard input and output and forking processes that made me realize that I had underestimated it. So, given that, I was wondering if there is even more that I've been missing.
I have for that matter read about named pipes before and tried it out a bit. It's definitely a cool concept.
I don't think it's that you have a differing opinion. Those are great and most people would be OK with that. I really believe you got the down votes because what you said came off as condescending.
If you had said what you just said in your follow up, I think you'd actually have gotten some up votes.
