[TUHS] ed(1) and Pipes.

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi,

ed(1) pre-dates pipes.  When pipes came along, stderr was needed, and
lots of new idioms were found to make use of them.  Why didn't ed gain a
`filter' command to accompany `r !foo' and `w !bar'?

To sort this paragraph, I

    ;/^$/w !sort >t
    ;/^$/d
    -r t

I'd have thought that filtering was common enough to suggest a `^'
command with an implied `!'?  (Not `|' since that was uncommon then.)

ex(1) has `!' that filters if applied to a range of lines, and this
carries through to vi's `!' that's often heavily used, especially when
the "file" is just a scratch buffer of commands, input, and output.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy