https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/Recent content in Under the Anvil on The Textsmith MagazineHugoen-gbSat, 01 Aug 2026 21:11:00 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/editorial/the-transformative-power-of-plain-text/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/editorial/the-transformative-power-of-plain-text/Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Textsmith Magazine. As automation redefines computing, we examine what it means to be a textsmith through the lens of text transformation—from 20 years of Pandoc to command-line data science.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/dispatches/twenty-years-of-pandoc-celebrating-the-unix-philosophy-of-transformation/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 17:07:25 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/dispatches/twenty-years-of-pandoc-celebrating-the-unix-philosophy-of-transformation/Tools should transform information, not imprison it. Pandoc is perhaps the purest embodiment of that idea, making it a fitting subject for both its twentieth anniversary and our ongoing exploration of the Unix way of thinking.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-workshop/the-rustification-of-the-unix-toolbox/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 21:11:00 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-workshop/the-rustification-of-the-unix-toolbox/The best Rust tools rarely reject the philosophy of small composable programs&ndash;they simply revisit decades-old implementations with today&rsquo;s programming languages and expectations.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-workshop/the-case-for-small-tools-why-unix-still-teaches-us-the-best-way-to-solve-big-problems/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 19:10:33 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-workshop/the-case-for-small-tools-why-unix-still-teaches-us-the-best-way-to-solve-big-problems/Every program is a set of functions that cooperate to produce the desired result. Did you ever consider how your computer makes it possible for you to craft complete programs on-the-fly through its small utilities?https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-workshop/why-system-administration-is-applied-text-processing/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 15:40:00 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-workshop/why-system-administration-is-applied-text-processing/In this article, I look at what system administration entails. We see that the real work is understanding, producing, transforming, and maintaining text.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-workshop/thinking-in-transformations-why-textsmiths-love-search-and-replace/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 07:58:28 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-workshop/thinking-in-transformations-why-textsmiths-love-search-and-replace/One of the greatest changes that happens when someone becomes a textsmith is not learning a new command. It is learning a new way of thinking.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-workshop/the-unix-view-of-text-files-are-streams-not-pages/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 07:29:01 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-workshop/the-unix-view-of-text-files-are-streams-not-pages/Many people learn the Unix slogan &ldquo;everything is a file.&rdquo; That&rsquo;s true, but I almost think the more profound slogan is: &ldquo;Everything is a stream waiting to be read or written.&rdquo;https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/reflections/the-heat-of-the-campfire/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 16:13:15 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/reflections/the-heat-of-the-campfire/The value of treasuring one&rsquo;s tools is not in the venom one spits against those who do not use them, rather it is in the satisfaction one gets and the productivity he reaps from them.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/reflections/when-ai-can-write-better-than-us-what-happens-to-the-textsmith/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:29:15 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/reflections/when-ai-can-write-better-than-us-what-happens-to-the-textsmith/Let us face some hard-to-digest facts we have today: AI, whether we like it or not, has changed our workplaces. Now did we ever reflect on what it means to have your place filled by a machine?https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/data-analysis/the-humble-csv-the-most-important-data-format-you-already-know/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 07:27:28 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/data-analysis/the-humble-csv-the-most-important-data-format-you-already-know/Understanding the CSV file format is perhaps the most important thing that any textsmith can ever do: it is both a plain text document without much fanfare, and one that carries portable data in a way that proprietary formats do in spreadshees.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/data-analysis/what-is-data-analysis-really/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 07:14:47 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/data-analysis/what-is-data-analysis-really/Data analysis is at the core of any industry pipeline these days. In my view, it is a dangerous existence when one lives without it. But now the fundamental question we have to ask is: &ldquo;What is indeed data analysis anyway?&rdquo;https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/data-analysis/when-csv-stops-being-enough/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 07:13:31 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/data-analysis/when-csv-stops-being-enough/While A CSV file is great for keeping records, one thing it cannot do is to show relationships. This is where the need for a database comes into the picture.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/data-analysis/dirty-data-why-cleaning-takes-longer-than-analysis/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 07:10:20 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/data-analysis/dirty-data-why-cleaning-takes-longer-than-analysis/It is a universal truth that textsmiths work with data formats. Yet formats are attempts to impose structure on messy reality, but no format can decide what the right structure is for you. So in this article, we are going to look at what data cleaning is.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/alternative-ways/markdown-didnt-just-win-the-internet-now-its-coming-for-the-office-suite/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 10:10:08 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/alternative-ways/markdown-didnt-just-win-the-internet-now-its-coming-for-the-office-suite/Technologies that change the world do not always get glossy press statements. Instead, they do so quietly and with the power of the community: this is the story of Markdown.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/alternative-ways/sqlite-the-database-you-already-have/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 07:35:26 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/alternative-ways/sqlite-the-database-you-already-have/This is my favorite database due to its size and power: Sqlite. Why do I prize it like this when there are other popular databases like PostgreSQL, MySql and so on? The answer lies in its availability and what I can do with it.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/alternative-ways/why-plain-text-scales-better-than-you-think/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 06:21:30 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/alternative-ways/why-plain-text-scales-better-than-you-think/Why does plain text fits the bill when it comes to backing up information for long-term? The answer lies in its format: it does well as source, and asn end-product in data.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-nugget/five-pipelines-every-textsmith-should-know/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 14:20:00 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-nugget/five-pipelines-every-textsmith-should-know/A good textsmith doesn&rsquo;t look for one command that does everything. He looks for small utilities that each do one thing well. This is the lesson that we draw from this nugget.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-nugget/putting-your-dotfiles-under-version-control-in-15-minutes/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 11:15:03 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-nugget/putting-your-dotfiles-under-version-control-in-15-minutes/This interesting nugget is on version controlling your application configuration fileshttps://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-nugget/five-commands-to-inspect-csv-files/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 06:26:52 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-nugget/five-commands-to-inspect-csv-files/These commands work beautifully for simple CSV files, but they are not full CSV parsers. Quoted fields containing commas, embedded newlines, escaped quotes, and similar cases are where awk needs care—or where a dedicated CSV parser becomes the right tool.https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/bookshelf/the-textsmith-bookshelf-data-science-at-the-command-line/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 06:28:49 +0200https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/bookshelf/the-textsmith-bookshelf-data-science-at-the-command-line/How a Unix terminal became a data analysis laboratoryhttps://magazine.thetextsmith.com/about/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/about/<p>This is the official engineering and publishing magazine of <a href="https://thetextsmith.com/">The Textsmith</a>, focusing on text-processing workflows, shell environments, and Unix system administration.</p> <hr> <h2 id="magazine-sections--focus-areas">magazine Sections &amp; Focus Areas</h2> <h3 id="-the-workshop">⚙️ <a href="https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/the-workshop/">The Workshop</a></h3> <p>Discussions centered on</p> <ul> <li>Tools of the trade: terminal utilities, text editors (Vim, Emacs), and classic text-processing workhorses like <code>grep</code>, <code>awk</code>, and <code>sed</code>.</li> <li>Text manipulation meets system administration. We cover shell scripting, systemd service architecture, configuration management, and reproducible computing setups.</li> <li>Tips, patterns, and paradigms for manipulating raw text, constructing pipelines, and parsing data records using regular expressions and filters.</li> </ul> <h3 id="-alternative-ways">🌱 <a href="https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/alternative-ways/">Alternative Ways</a></h3> <p>Here is another way that lowers the barrier considerably: <strong>use of plain text to do things that are normally done with proprietary software.</strong></p>https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/contact/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://magazine.thetextsmith.com/contact/Reader feedback, letters to the editor, and secure correspondence.