diff --git a/readme.md b/README.md
similarity index 90%
rename from readme.md
rename to README.md
index 47a03a2..6d39a02 100644
--- a/readme.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -31,13 +31,13 @@ Or:
 ## authorship
 
 This is more tricky, and requires Ruby. First run the
-`determine_authors.sh` script to get a count of all the authorship
+`commits_stats.sh` script to get a count of all the authorship
 events in the repo; then run the `tally_authors.rb` Ruby script to sort
 the authorship events by name.
 
 You can do all that as a one-liner in bash like this:
 
-    ruby tally_authors.rb <(cd /project && /this_dir/determine_authors.sh "js")
+    ruby tally_authors.rb <(cd /project && /this_dir/commits_stats.sh -d "js")
 
 The code isn't tricky at all, and the output is easy to understand, but
 it's also easy to misconstrue. That's the tricky part. A developer
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ commits to small ones, or for several other possible reasons. Exercise
 good judgement.
 
 Also, where `file_stats.sh` will examine multiple file types,
-`determine_authors.sh` and `tally_authors.rb` assumes you're only
+`commits_stats.sh` and `tally_authors.rb` assumes you're only
 working with one type of file at a time. Pull requests welcome!
 
 Caveat: Running this code against extremely large projects with very
diff --git a/commits_stats.sh b/commits_stats.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..1eee364
--- /dev/null
+++ b/commits_stats.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,130 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+CMD=`basename $0`;
+
+# prints the usage message
+function usage() {
+	echo -e "$CMD is a script to extract some basic info on git commits and 
+authors from the files contained in the current directory.
+If invoked without parameters it will output the overall list of commits
+count per author (-o) followed by the list of files with the commit count
+for each author.
+It can also be used to extract information on specific file extensions.\n
+Syntax: $CMD [-h|-o|[-c|-a|-d] <filetype>]
+\t-h: prints this help
+\t-o: displays just the overall commits count per author
+\t-c: displays the files ordered by number of commits
+\t-a: displays overall commits, and list of commits by author per each file
+\t-d: just extract the authors, to be used in conjunction with tally_authors.rb
+\t<filetype>: display authors commit count for specific filetypes
+\te.g. $CMD js # examines authorship for *.js files
+\n"
+}
+
+# returns the list of authors
+function extract_authors {
+    for filename in $(find . -iname "${PATTERN}"); do
+        git log $filename | grep "Author"
+    done
+}
+
+# uses the log of a specific file to capture the number of commits per person
+function count_author_commits_per_file {
+    if [[ ! -n $1 ]]; then
+        filename=''
+    else
+        filename=$1;
+    fi
+    git log --pretty=format:"%an <%ae>" $filename | awk '{
+        authorsCount[$NF]++; 
+        authors[$NF]=$0; 
+    } 
+    END { 
+        for (i in authorsCount) 
+            printf("%d\t%s\n", authorsCount[i], authors[i]); 
+    }';
+}
+
+function tally_authors {
+    if [[ -n $OVERALL_ONLY ]]; then
+        echo "Overall";
+        count_author_commits_per_file | sort -k1,1nr -k2,2;
+        return
+    fi
+    for filename in $(find . -iname "${PATTERN}" -not -wholename "*.git*" -not -wholename "*.svn*"); do
+        authors=`count_author_commits_per_file $filename | sort -k1,1nr -k2,2`;
+        if [ "$authors" = "" ]; then
+            continue;
+        fi
+        if [ $filename = '.' ]; then
+            echo "Overall"
+        else
+            echo $filename;
+        fi
+        echo "$authors";
+   done
+}
+
+function count_commits_per_file {
+    for filename in $(find . -iname "${PATTERN}" -not -wholename "*.git*" -not -wholename "*.svn*"); do
+        commits_count=`git rev-list HEAD --count ${filename}`;
+        if [ $commits_count -gt 0 ]; then
+            echo -e "${commits_count}\t${filename}"; 
+        fi
+    done
+}
+
+function sort_files_by_commits {
+    file_commits=`count_commits_per_file | sort -k1,1nr -k2,2`;
+    if [[ -n $ALL_STATS ]]; then
+        echo "${file_commits}" | while read line; do
+            tot_commits=`echo ${line} | awk '{ print $1 }'`;
+            filename=`echo "${line}" | awk '{ sub(/.*\t/, ""); print }'`;
+            echo ${filename};
+            echo "${tot_commits} total commit(s)"
+            count_author_commits_per_file $filename | sort -k1,1nr -k2,2;
+            echo "";
+        done
+    else
+        echo "$file_commits";
+    fi
+}
+
+while getopts ":hocad" Option
+do
+    case $Option in
+        h) usage
+            exit 0
+            ;;
+        o) OVERALL_ONLY=true
+            ;;
+        c) FILE_COMMITS_ONLY=true
+            ;;
+        a) ALL_STATS=true
+            ;;
+        d) DEPRECATED=true
+            ;;
+    esac
+done
+
+# Decrements the argument pointer so it points to next argument.
+# $1 now references the first non-option item supplied on the command-line
+# if one exists.
+shift $(($OPTIND - 1))
+
+if [ $# -eq 1 ]; then
+    PATTERN="*.$1";
+else
+    PATTERN='*.*';
+fi
+
+if [[ -n $FILE_COMMITS_ONLY ]]; then
+    sort_files_by_commits;
+elif [[ -n $ALL_STATS ]]; then
+    sort_files_by_commits;
+elif [[ -n $DEPRECATED ]]; then
+    extract_authors;
+else
+    tally_authors "${PATTERN}";
+fi
+
+exit 0
diff --git a/file_stats.sh b/file_stats.sh
old mode 100644
new mode 100755
index 929debd..98c09ae
--- a/file_stats.sh
+++ b/file_stats.sh
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
 function git_history {
   git log $filename | grep "Date: "
 }