On Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 5:40 AM Jonathan Crall <erote...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I just want to point out that I can think of a valid use case for `clf`. I'm 
> not sure if it was mentioned.
>
> In the case where you have a script that produces a lot of output, a common 
> task might be scrolling to the beginning to check an output. If your screen 
> was not fresh, and you had a lot of previous output (say from running the 
> script multiple times), then it is hard to find the beginning unless you have 
> previously cleared the screen.
>

This is exactly why I think this should NOT be made too easy. That's a
perfect example of an attractive nuisance: instead of creating a
divider (say, a half a dozen blank lines, or a row of hyphens with a
blank or two each side), you're throwing away all information from the
previous output, making it impossible to compare the two. Once your
script has a clear-screen at the start of it, you lose the option to
examine history, whereas a simple few blank lines would have a similar
effect without losing anything.

If it is added to the stdlib, I hope that it's buried away where
people find it only if they're actually looking for it. There ARE
valid use-cases, but there are far far more cases where it shouldn't
be used.

ChrisA
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