> I just prefix it with a backslash: \grep

I have an almost identical grep alias.

Word of warning, I use `\grep` quite frequently. The usage is when you are piping after grep or saving to a variable.

Illustrative example:

  $ TO_DL=$(curl "https://foo.com/releases/" \
            | grep -e "latest" \
            | head -n1 \
   )
  $ curl $TO_DL
  curl: (3) bad range in URL position XX
  https://foo.com/releases/latest.tar.gz
                           ^^^^^^

Annoyingly `--color=auto` can change the representation of the characters so when you run again there's a mismatch. I just find `\grep` easier than `grep --color=never`.

Annoying footgun, but something to be aware of in case you go down this extremely confusing rabbit hole like me. I couldn't figure it out until I decided to hexdump the string.

[Side note]: My first thought reading the article was also about how `\` basically solves the problem but they do have one advantage in that they can do `,<tab>` and get a list of all their custom commands. Personally not worth it for me but I can definitely see this being useful for some. Especially on shared systems. But getting everyone to prefix a script name seems just as unlikely as getting everyone to place programs in the right location.