Mastering JavaScript Functional Programming - Second Edition

Piping in Unix/Linux

In Unix/Linux, executing a command and passing its output as input to a second command, whose output will yield the input of a third command, and so on, is called a pipeline. This is quite a common application of the philosophy of Unix, as explained in a Bell Laboratories article, written by the creator of the pipelining concept himself, Doug McIlroy:

• Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new features.
• Expect the output of every program to become the input to another, so far unknown, program.

Given the historical importance of Unix, I'd recommend reading some of the seminal articles describing the (then new) operating system, in the Bell System ...