On Mar 15, 2008, at 23:29 , David O'Brien wrote:
On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 03:21:01PM -0700, Bert JW Regeer wrote:
Even if BSD has no tradition to keep a separate program version, it
is
still very handy to be able to give this data to other developers if
something is failing.
$ ident failing-binary is the output that means something. A version
string will not.
Programs that don't have a -v or --version switch are frustrating to
Anyone used to working on BSD will not expect a -v switch. It isn't
part
of BSD tradition. The simple fact there is no obivous "version" to
print
just shows that in a OS that is developed and built as a whole,
having a
version on the util is meaningless.
Dropping -v would be a bad thing, and make the tools not compatible,
thus breaking many scripts that do expect a -v.
Come on, how many scripts do you write that do "sdiff -v" today?
--
-- David ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
I see the reasoning behind dropping it now. It certainly make sense as
you and Peter Jeremy describe it, I have just never thought of it that
way.
Cheers,
Bert JW Regeer
