[colug-432] Nice Plain Text Columns and Avoiding NIH: expand: not

[R P Herrold]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2011, Rob Funk wrote:

>> Why not just:
>>
>> <foo \
>>   filter --somehow |\
>>   another-filter --some-other-way |\
>>   more-filtering --with-more-options
>
> Because it doesn't look as clear to me. It looks like it's missing a "|", and
> the "<" points in the wrong direction, away from the pipeline. (Not actually,
> just visually/cognitively.)

Just swing a cat at it  ;)

cat - < foo | \


and we are full circle

ease of debugging [here visual consistency, removing the need 
to wonder] trumps the extra cat, every time

I use the extra form with a | \ at the end of each line, 
because that idiom (known to my fingers) lets me temporarly 
comment parts out and drop them back in with a copy, and ^ai# 
(esc) ... but that's just me

but just MHO

-- Russ herrold