Piping across machines? - a suggestion

[Alex Zbyslaw]

Nino Ivanov wrote:

>Dear Sir or Madam,
>
>I am still a newbie in some respects, so maybe this idea is a moot point
>or done already, but in case it is not, I'd like to suggest it:
>
>One nice thing about unix is this piping, like programX | programY |
>programZ...
>
>Well, I just thought: Wouldn't it be interesting if this were possible -
>in the same simplicity - over several machines as well? Like, something
>similar to: machine1:programX | machine2:programY | machine3:programZ...
>Machines could be identified by a name or an IP-Address.
>  
>
programX | ssh machine2 programY | ssh machine3 programZ

works for pretty much any reasonable(*) choice of programY or programZ

--Alex

(*) terminal-based programs like less won't always work.