Doug McIlroy advocated small programs transforming text streams implemented as bounded buffers between parallel processes. This was his lasting vision of a component architecture.
Only a few of my scripts, authored daily, have become memorable enough to be recalled here. I'll favor mention of those faithful to the "batch" flavor of commands executed to completion.
Webcam Sky Survey was an education in writing scripts that would run 24x7. Check for errors.
Christmas Lights were written as scripts that scripts I'd run under screen and check in on every day or so.
Tally Server Log Events is typical of investigations I do every month or so. This happens to be one I wrote up.