The author discusses a niche terminal problem involving pipes and buffering issues when using specific commands in a terminal. They explain the concept of buffering and how certain programs handle output differently when writing to a terminal versus a pipe. They highlight common commands that buffer output and provide solutions to avoid buffering problems, such as using specific flags or programs like awk and stdbuf. The author also explores the idea of having an environment variable to disable buffering and mentions the limitations of existing solutions. The post concludes with additional topics related to buffering that were not covered in detail.
https://jvns.ca/blog/2024/11/29/why-pipes-get-stuck-buffering/