[randusername]

oh my god how could I have been doing this for so long and not realize that you can redirect before your binary.

I knew cat was an anti-pattern, but I always thought it was so unreadable to redirect at the end

[attentive]

it seems smart until you accidently type >input.json and nuke the file

[HappMacDonald]

That sounds like a mistake which would be easily to make at the end of the line, unless you are contrasting input stream redirect against cat regardless where it's written on the line?

[figmert]

You can use sponge for that.