> Outputting to stdout gives the control and power to the user - if they want it in a file which they want to name, they can do that; if they want to pass the output as input to another application - they can do that too.
Please note that we already agree here.
> What use case have you where stdout/stdin/stderr isn't enough on an operating system family where the core paradigm of usage is that everything is a binary stream of data?
My argument isn't that I have a use case where it 'isn't enough.' My argument is that many people come to a cli utility expecting that <foo /path/to/myfile> simply works.
My argument is that many people come to a cli utility expecting that <foo /path/to/myfile> simply works.
So are for or against that? If you're for the < /path/to/my/file argument, then we are in complete agreement. A command line application should read from stdin where that applies.
It seems to me there was confusion here caused by an unfortunate choice of angle brackets for quoting.
I think `foo /path/to/myfile` is what the parent was trying to say.
There are few usage scenarios where such behavior isn't enough, like for example fsck, but even there this paradigm is flexible enough to work - for such applications could be split into an analyzer and a repair program. There is nothing stopping one from outputting a binary data stream on stdout; Lots of applications do exactly that on UNIX, compressors come to mind.
What use case have you where stdout/stdin/stderr isn't enough on an operating system family where the core paradigm of usage is that everything is a binary stream of data?