As the UNIX system has spread, the fraction of its users who are skilled in its application has decreased. Time and again, we have seen experienced users, ourselves included, find only clumsy solutions to aproblem, or write programs to do jobs that existing tools handle easily.
-Kernighan/Pike, 1984
There are many people who use UNIX or Linux who IMHO do not understand UNIX. UNIX is not just an operating system, it is a way of doing things, and the shell plays a key role by providing the glue that makes it work. The UNIX methodology relies heavily on reuse of a set of tools rather than on building monolithic applications. Even perl programmers often miss the point, writing the heart and soul of the application as perl script without making use of the UNIX toolkit.
-David Korn, 2001