On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 06:44:38PM +0200, H.Merijn Brand wrote: > On Thu, 25 May 2006 11:30:20 -0500, David Champion <d...@uchicago.edu> wrote: > > > * On 2006.05.25, in <20060525181940.6a7da...@pc09>, > > * "H.Merijn Brand" <h.m.br...@xs4all.nl> wrote: > > > On Thu, 25 May 2006 09:53:56 -0500 (CDT), sabrina downard > > > <s...@uchicago.edu> > > > 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). > > Huh? I've been using UNIX since 1982. Long enough? I started with > System III, and then got cought in a job that involved writing Unic > Device drivers for SLD disks. I've never seen a UNIX command from that > time that did not support -?
jrod...@skonnos:~ >ls -? ls: invalid option -- ? Try `ls --help' for more information. There we go. No -?, and the hateful taunt. In my experience -? was more common in dos environents which I used sometimes, so when I want help these days I tend to type blah -h blah -? blah --help while only barely glancing at the blah output to see if it might be helpful. > info pages are useless. Give me plain man pages please, *AND* a useful --help > or -? I know this is the hate list, and typical info content is rather hateful, but consider installing 'pinfo', it's somewhat less hateful to use than 'info', at least I can reliably quit it without ^Z to suspend and kill %2. When a tool is complex enough that I actually need a bit more of a manual and less of an options listing, sometimes this stuff is useful. -josh