Unix Pipe as Functional Language

interview with Alfred Aho (designer of awk, and author of the compiler Dragon Book), on unix pipe as function composition.

It is from a interview with Alfred Aho, one of the creators of AWK. The source is from this book: Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages 2009 By Federico Biancuzzi et al. Buy at amazon

Since about 1998, when i got into the unix programing industry, i see the pipe as a postfix notation, and sequencing pipes as a form of functional programing, but finding it overall extremely badly designed. I've wrote a few essays explaining the functional programing connection and exposing the lousy syntax. (mostly in years around 2000) However, i've never seen another person expressing the idea that unix pipes is a form of postfix notation and functional programing. It is a great satisfaction to see one of the main unix author state so.

Unix Pipe as Functional Programing

The following email content (slighted edited) is posted to Mac OS X mailing list. [source http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/archive/macosx-talk/2002-May/064059.html ]

From: xah@xahlee.org
Subject: Re: mail handling/conversion between OSes/apps
Date: May 12, 2002 8:41:58 PM PDT
Cc: macosx-talk@omnigroup.com

Yes, unix have this beautiful philosophy. The philosophy is functional programing. For example, define:

power(x,y) := x^y

so “power(3,2)” returns “9”.

Here “power” is a function that takes 2 arguments. First parameter is the number to multiply by itself, the second is the number of times of doing so.

functions can be nested,

f(g(h(x)))

or composed

compose(f,g,h)(x)

Here the “compose” itself is a function, which take other functions as arguments, and the output of compose is a new function that is equivalent to nesting f g h.

Nesting does not necessarily involve nested syntax. For example, f(g(h)) in Mathematica's postfix notation is written like this:

x // h // g // f

or prefix notation:

f @ g @ h @ x

The principle is that everything is either a function definition or function application, and function's behavior is strictly determined by its arguments.

Apple around 1997 or so have this OpenDoc technology, which is similar idea applied more broadly across OS. That is, instead of one monolithic browser or big image editors or other software, but have lots of small tools or components that each does one specific thing and all can call each other or embedded in a application framework as services or the like. For example, in a email app, you can use BBEdit to write you email, use Microsoft's spell checker, use XYZ brand of recorder to record a message, without having to open many applications or use the Finder the way we would do today. This multiplies flexibility. (OpenDoc was killed when Steve Jobs became the iCEO around 1998 and did some serious house-cleansing, against the ghastly anger of Mac developers and fanatics, I'm sure many of you remember this piece of history.)

The unix pipe syntax “|”, is a postfix notation for nesting. example

ps auwwx | awk '{print $2}' | sort -n | xargs echo

in conventional syntax it might look like this:

xargs(  echo, sort(n, awk('print $2', ps(auwwx)))  )

So when you use “pipe” to string many commands in unix, you are doing supreme functional programing. That's why it is so flexible and useful, because each component or function does one thing, and you can combine them in myriad of ways. However, this beautiful functional programing idea, when it is implemented by the unix heads, becomes a faaking mess. Nothing works and nothing works right.

I don't feel like writing a comprehensive exposition on this at the moment. Here's a quick summary:

• Fantastically stupid syntax.
• Inconsistencies everywhere. Everywhere.
• Faaking stupid global variables reliance called environment variables, which faaks up the whole functional programing paradigm.
• Implicit stuff everywhere.
• Totally incompetent commands and their parameters. (promiscuously non-orthogonal, and missing things, and faaked up in just more ways than one can possibly imagine. There are one million way to do one thing, and none are correct, and much simple needs CANNOT be done! (that's why there are gazillion shells each smart-ass improving upon the other, and that's why Perl is born too! But asinine Larry Wall don't know shit but smugly created another complexity that don't do much.))

Maybe some other day when i'm pissed, i'll write a better exposition on this issue. I've been wanting to write a final-say essay on this for long. Don't feel like it now.

Unix Syntactical and Semantical Stupidity Exposition

The following is posted to a Mac OS X mailing list. [Source http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/archive/macosx-talk/2002-June/066077.html ] Slightly modified here.

From: xah@xahlee.org
Subject: unix inanity: shell env syntax
Date: June 7, 2002 12:00:29 AM PDT
To: macosx-talk@omnigroup.com

arguments are given with a dash prefix. example

ls -a -l

Order does not matter (USUALLY!!). So,

ls -a -l

is the same as

ls -l -a

but arguments can be combined, example

ls -al

means the same thing as

ls -a -l

However, some option consists of more than one character. example

perl -version
perl -help

therefore, the meaning of a option string "-ab" is ad hoc dependent on the program. It can mean two parameters “a” and “b”, or just one parameter named "ab".

Then, often there are two versions of the same optional argument. example

perl -help
perl -h

perl -version
perl -v

this equivalence is dependent for each program.

Different program will disagree on common options. For example, to get the version, here are common varieties:

-v
-V
-version

sometimes v/V stands for "verbose mode", i.e. to output more detail.

Sometimes, if a option is given more than once, then it specifies a degree of that option. For example, some command accept the -v for "verbose", meaning that it will output more detail. Sometimes there are few levels of detail. The number of times a option is given determines the level of detail. , for example: on Solaris 8,

/usr/ucb/ps -w
/usr/ucb/ps -w -w

Thus, meaning of repeated option may have special meaning depending on the program.

Oftentimes some options automatically turn on or surpress a bunch of others. For example, Solaris 8,

/usr/bin/ls -f

When a named optional parameter is of a boolean type, that is a toggle of yes/no, true/false, then, often, instead of taking a boolean value, their sole existence or non-existence define their value. (this is a confusion/infusion of named parameter and optional parameter)

Toggle options are sometimes represented by one option name for yes, while another option name for no. And, when both are present, the behavior is program dependent.

For named options, the syntax for arguments is inconsistent. Some program uses one syntax variation, others require another, some accept more than one syntax variations, for others it's syntax error. example

command -o="myvalue"
command -omyvalue
command -o myvalue

Often one option may have many synonyms…

A example of a better design… (Mathematica, Scheme, Dylan, Python, Ruby… there's quite a lot elegance and practicality yet distinct designs and purposes and styles …)

(recall that unix is a bad design to begin with; it's a donkey shit pile from the beginning and continuation. Again, unix is not simply technically incompetent. If that, then that's easy to improve, and i don't have a problem with, since there are things in one way or another considered horrendous by today's standard like COBOL or FORTRAN or DOS etc. But, unix is a brain-washing idiot-making machine, churning out piles and piles of religiously idiotic and pigheaded keyboard punchers. For EVERY aspects of good engineering methodology improvement or language design progress opportunity, unixers will unanimously turn it down.)

Inevitably someone will ask what's my point. My point in my series of unix-showcasing articles have always been clear for those who study it: Unix is a crime that caused society inordinate harm, and i want unix geeks to wake up and realize it.

Unix Shell Syntax Idiocy Example: ps Command

One good example of the confuse ball in a single command can be seen in the ps command. In Solaris and BSD, typically you type ps auwwx (note, dash not allowed.) In POSIX unix, you type ps -ef. In linux, it tries to merge both syntax. See man ps.

GNU Double-Dash Syntax, 1990s

Note, in 1990s, the GNU introduced the double-dash syntax. For example, emacs --no-init-file, in hope to make it readable. Unfortunately, it didn't really catch on. Most commands today do offer the double-dash variant, but only for some options. The double-dash option does not necessarily mean there's a corresponding single-dash one, and vice versa. The end result is just more syntax jumble.

Unix Shell Syntax, 2000 to 2013

as of 2013, the unix shell tool syntax have gone thru more evolution.

during 2000s, a new syntax form became popular, one that has a Action or Verb keyword immediately following the command name. Here are some prominent examples:

• apt-get install --simulate -y name
Note this line contains 3 elements of syntax: dashless action positional argument, double dash, single dash, and the main argument for the verb name is placed at the end. [see Linux: How to Install/Remove Packages ]

• git add -m"some" fpath
[see Git Basics ]

• iptables --table filter --append INPUT --jump DROP
Note this command has a main dish, that is the --table filter, which specifies which table to act on. It is not a verb nor action. [see Linux: Firewall, iptables Tutorial]

Microsoft PowerShell

Note: Microsoft's new shell programing language, PowerShell (2006), adopted much of unix shell's syntax and the pipe paradigm, but with consistent design.

[see PowerShell Tutorial]