Re: A simple hate today.

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From: Juerd
Subject: Re: A simple hate today.
Date: 14:11 on 27 May 2006
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
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