Always bet on text (2014)
2014.  Has this been posted before?<p>Anyway, I strongly agree.  And I think it takes balls to state this opinion because you will be opposed by so many.<p>I also think the Bourne shell, which accepts good ole text as input (as someone downthread points out), is my most powerful application.  Among other things because it is everywhere, it's relatively small, fast, and seems to have an infinite lifetime; it appears forever protected from obsolescence.  It's reliable.<p>Stating this opinion never fails to draw protest.  It's just an opinion.  Relax.<p>One time I stated it to what I thought was a sophisticated audience that I was sure could handle it.  Somebody still went bananas, claiming that "make" could do everything the shell can do.  I must be wrong but at the time I thought "Doesn't make just run the shell?"<p>There will always be people who are hell bent on arguing against plain text.  And the Bourne shell.  Why is anyone's guess.<p>Yet no matter how much internet commentators might complain, I doubt these two things are ever going to disappear.  They might get buried beneath 20 layers of abstraction, but they will still be there.<p>Year after year, they just work.  And for that I'm thankful.