Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

#1

Post by theblazehen » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 7:59 PM UTC

Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)
rhodesmill.org

Re: Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

#2

Post by sevg » Sat, Feb 07, 2026, 10:50 AM UTC

This is one of those ideas that is so simple and elegant that it makes you think “why did I never think of doing this?!”

Neat trick! I don’t think I’ll namespace everything this way, because there’s some aliases and commands I run so often that the comma would get annoying, but for other less frequently used helper scripts then this will be perfect!

Re: Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

#3

Post by dadandang » Sat, Feb 07, 2026, 10:50 AM UTC

,Start all of your commands with a comma

Re: Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

#4

Post by bronlund » Sat, Feb 07, 2026, 10:56 AM UTC

This is just brilliant. Thanks.

Re: Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

#5

Post by falloutx » Sat, Feb 07, 2026, 10:58 AM UTC

Finally a post that is relevant to what I have been looking for quite some time.

Also, kudos to keeping it so concise and to the point, thats some prime writing.

Re: Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

#6

Post by luplex » Sat, Feb 07, 2026, 11:00 AM UTC

similarly, I start all my underscorends with an underscore

Re: Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

#7

Post by guilherme-puida » Sat, Feb 07, 2026, 11:02 AM UTC

(2009)

Re: Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

#8

Post by pjerem » Sat, Feb 07, 2026, 11:02 AM UTC

sevg wrote: post #2

This is one of those ideas that is so simple and elegant that it makes you think “why did I never think of doing this?!” Neat trick! I don’t think I’ll namespace everything this way, because there’s some aliases and commands I run so often that the comma would get annoying, but for other less frequently used helper scripts then this will be perfect!

Maybe then try ending your commands with a comma so that you don’t break first-char autocomplete !

Re: Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

#9

Post by mathfailure » Sat, Feb 07, 2026, 11:03 AM UTC

I didn't like the idea. I prefer the alternative approach: _I_ decide the order of dirs in the PATH env. If I introduce an executable with a name, that overrides a system one - I probably do that intentionally.

If I introduce an alias (like `grep='grep --binary-files=without-match --ignore-case --color=auto`) that matches the name of a system binary - I probably do that intentionally.

And if I EVER need to call grep without my alias - I just prefix it with a backslash: \grep will search with case sensitivity and no color and will scan binaries.

Re: Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

#10

Post by karolist » Sat, Feb 07, 2026, 11:03 AM UTC

Interesting, though I never had enough custom scripts to justify this, I prefer oh-my-zsh plugin style short aliases instead, i.e. https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/tree/master/plugins/git