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Comment by kristjansson | Hacker News Reader

I think it's beautiful? Reads left-to-right, has nice symmetry if you pipe to an output file like:

    < infile some_cmd > outfile

and real clarifies what's a shell command, what's a redirection, etc.

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It would make more sense like:

    infile > some_cmd > outfile

Then the arrow would be pointing in the right direction. But then it would be unclear whether "infile" is a file or a command. Which is why people use:

    cat infile | some_cmd > outfile

You can now interpret "cat" as a keyword that specifies that "infile" is a file.

It is more pleasant to the eye if you remove the spaces:

    <infile some_cmd >outfile

Just like you wouldn't add spaces in the middle of '2>&1' when redirecting stderr to stdout:

    <infile some_cmd >outfile 2>&1

> Just like you wouldn't add spaces in the middle of '2>&1' when redirecting stderr to stdout:

Mostly because if you do it doesn’t work: '2 >&1' is not the same as '2> &1' (invalid syntax) which is not the same as '2>& 1', which …is the same as '2>&1'.

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