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Like many Unix users, I long ago created a ~/bin/ directory in my home directory and added it to my PATH so that I could supplement the wonderfully rich set of basic Unix commands with some conveniences and shell scripts of my own devising.
I give some advice each year in my annual Sphinx tutorial at PyCon . A grateful student asked where I myself had learned the tip. I have done some archæology and finally have an answer. Let me share what I teach them about “semantic linefeeds,” then I will reveal its source — which turns out to have been written when…