You've stumbled into a celebration of the Unix philosophy. You may ask "What is the Unix philosophy?"
According to Doug McIlroy:
Do One Thing And Do It Well
According to Mike Gancarz:
- Small is beautiful.
- Make each program do one thing well.
- Build a prototype as soon as possible.
- Choose portability over efficiency.
- Store data in flat text files.
- Use software leverage to your advantage.
- Use shell scripts to increase leverage and portability.
- Avoid captive user interfaces.
- Make every program a filter.