From Kernighan and Pike's The UNIX Programming Environment:

For most purposes, this simple scheme is exactly what is wanted. When a more complicated structure is needed, it can easily be built on top of this; the converse, creating simplicity from complexity, is harder to achieve.

and

Instead of creating distinctions, the UNIX system tries to efface them.

(see AwesomelySimple, ComplexSimplicity, OnAesthetics)

TopicProgramming - 2001-10-28

(correlates: OnAesthetics, WorldSeriesLines, AwesomelySimple, ...)