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Comment by gmfawcett | Hacker News Reader

So sidju says to themselves, hey, let's add syntax highlighting to ed. Kids, this is how you break the eternal seals on the hellmouth, and is also why we can't have nice things.

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The greatest crime is adding a `help` command and printing errors by default. Fools who stumble into `ed` unprepared should find no solace, it is a crime against the world itself to offer them aid and escape.

So say we all.

(And in case there were any doubts, I applaud your hellmouth seal-breaking invention. Scratch those itches, eternity will take care of itself!)

That’s the same as bat:[1] one of the features is syntax highlighting. Kind of unexpected to find a concatenation program… which also does that.

[1] https://github.com/sharkdp/bat

You wouldn't believe how often I run `bat` to quickly read some source code. It is nearly constantly open on my computer.

It is just so easy to run, easy to use, can open multiple files and is so readable. Why would I open an editor when I'm already in a terminal and it's right there?

I believe you. :) That’s I guess what most of us do; quickly look at a single file. Not really concatenating multiple files.

So the feature makes perfect pragmatic sense.

I wrote a little script for that, and I am surprised now at how often I use it instead of opening an editor:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l13UdgRJy2XvEzI4bYYFU09MW20...

I use `cat $(which ...)`. Makes sense to have a dedicated script for it. Cheers

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