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H.Merijn Brand skribis 2006-05-27 12:01 (+0200): > Anyway, My plea was not about how shells interpret -?, but that programs > should support it as alias for --help. -\? is still a lot less characters > than --help, and IMHO still evenly clear. Characters, yes, but my keyboard doesn't have a single key for each character. The "?" is shifted, it requires another keystroke. -\? is 4 keystrokes, with all keys but the "-" in a nice place. On QWERTY, it would be even worse: all keys would be awkwardly placed. "help" on the other hand, is in the alphabetical area, where my hands already are. "--help" is 6 keystrokes, but only 5 different characters, of which 4 alphabetical. "-\?" is 4 keystrokes, all in annoying places. (Dvorak does "-" a little better than QWERTY.) > OK, I've learned a lot from all the opinions raised in this hate, and I will > continue to support *both* --help and -? for all my scripts. There is no > harm nor security issue from the script/program side of that. If you maintain that there's no harm nor security issue, then you have not learned enough :) Will you document "-?" as "-\?"...? > I will probably review my scripts to > * send a requested help to STDOUT, and exit with 0 > * send error help to STDERR, and exit with non-null That's great. I like software that behaves like that. > sub usage ($) > (...) > Sounds sane? Apart from the prototype, yep. Juerd -- http://convolution.nl/maak_juerd_blij.html http://convolution.nl/make_juerd_happy.html http://convolution.nl/gajigu_juerd_n.htmlThere's stuff above here
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