pol.sh

Usage

pol.sh [file1] [file2] [file3] ... [fileN]

This script is not run automatically, but you may (or may not) find it useful.

Description

A feedback macro postprocessor. When you decide to use it, you can leave comments in text files of the special form:

$loremipsum:
But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born,
and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the > truth.
$

When you the think this particular feedback is something that applies to more than one submission. This syntax assigns this particular block of feedback (until the closing $) the shorthand loremipsum.

Then, later on, you can reference this feedback by simply mentioning its shorthand:

Dear student,
$loremipsum
Please try harder next week.

When you run pol.sh, all the definitions are collected, the defining syntax is stripped, and any shorthands will get expanded. So the previous sample will get replaced by:

Dear student,
But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born,
and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth.
Please try harder next week.

You can also leave references without having provided a prior definition; you can either define it later somewhere, or else running pol.sh will open an editor forcing you to provide a definition for any missing references.

Of course, to actually get these macro substitutions, you will have to run pol.sh with all the files which may have shared feedback as an argument, e.g.

~/bb-scripts/pol.sh */feedback.txt