Interesting article, but I don't see how the increase in number of arguments invalidates the "do one thing well".

Sure ls has a 58 (!) arguments but it's still a tool to list files ultimately.

> I've heard people say that there isn't really any alternative to this kind of complexity for command line tools, but people who say that have never really tried the alternative, something like PowerShell.

I've spent a lot of time passing around JSON and XML, not the same but similar. While it's true that structured data makes things easier, it's not without it's own faults.

I subscribe to unix philosophy of "do one thing well" and pass text around because it's served me well. You have to question status quo to come up with something new and better, but so far I'm not seeing it.