It isn't even about GNOME and GUIs, but things like this (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1037509" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1037509</a>). You don't need to add an "overwrite in-place" option to sed when you can add it to <i>everything</i> by making it its own command. Unix design concerns how functionality is factored at the level between programs, not just between objects in a program.<p>See "cat -v considered harmful" (<a href="http://gaul.org/files/cat_-v_considered_harmful.html" rel="nofollow">http://gaul.org/files/cat_-v_considered_harmful.html</a>). GNU just does bloat <i>bigger and better</i>. (Compare BSD make and GNU make, for starters.)