Re: A simple hate today.

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From: David Champion
Subject: Re: A simple hate today.
Date: 17:30 on 25 May 2006
* On 2006.05.25, in <20060525181940.6a7da5ce@pc09>,
*	"H.Merijn Brand" <h.m.brand@xxxxxx.xx> wrote:
> On Thu, 25 May 2006 09:53:56 -0500 (CDT), sabrina downard <sld@xxxxxxxx.xxx>
> wrote:
> 
> > If you do not have a better use for -h, and you have coded a usage 
> > statement for --help, then how damned difficult would it be to make -h 
> > equal to --help?  Since you're already going to print a damned error 
> > telling me to use --help instead?
> 
> Sorry, I disagree. And I have never liked -h to be help.
> IMHO it should be either -? or --help, and -help could be acceptable

It's not a matter of taste.  It's a matter of UNIX did that for twenty
years before GNU came by and made all the kids think different.  If
you've been using UNIX long and have not completely soaked yourself
in GNUisms, you still just automatically expect -h to work almost
everywhere, and --help to work in many places (but not by any means
most).


But the larger point is that an exception occurs (-h is not recognized
as an option) which triggers an error message.  Given the history of
-h, why should that error not be help itself, rather than metahelp?

Yes: hate.

-- 
 -D.    dgc@xxxxxxxx.xxx        NSIT    University of Chicago
There's stuff above here

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