Even better, IMO, would be a layered API, with a lower layer of 'atom' (atomic would be a good name, if it wasn't taken for something else already) calls tht do one thing, and a clearly separate layer of 'molecule' calls that help you perform common operations. For example, reading a text file into a string would be a 'molecule' call. That call would not need to be as flexible as a hand-coded open-read-convert bytes to characters- close chain. For example, it could assume a UTF-8 encoding.
