There also isn't any reason why other implementations of pipes have to do buffered byte read/writes, passing objects is perfectly acceptable.

The structurally distinguishing aspect of a pipe-and-filter style is that the individual processing elements don't "return" to their "caller", but rather pass their result on to the next processing element. Without involving the caller.

Let's say I have a table called dat.

  dat %>%

    filter(col_a == 'Good') %>%  

    group_by(col_b) %>%  

    summarize(n = n(), sum_c = sum(col_c))

  dat <- dat[dat$col_a == 'Good']

  dat_n <- aggregate(col_a ~ col_b, dat, length)

  dat_sum <- aggregate(col_c ~ col_b, dat, sum)

  merge(dat_n, dat_sum, by = "col_b")

Actually it makes R scripts much easier to grasp. It prevents the abusive usage of brackets, and it makes the data transformation flow more obvious.

    f(a, g(h(x), b))
    h(x) %>% g(b) %>% f(a, .)