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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!csu-cs!silver
From: silver@csu-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: thousands of input flags in one invocation...
Message-ID: <2387@csu-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Sep-83 00:09:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: csu-cs.2387
Posted: Wed Sep  7 00:09:16 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Sep-83 16:49:02 EDT
References: umcp-cs.2252
Lines: 19


Hey,  verbosity  by  default  is not  such a bad  idea,  so long as it's
something  I can turn on and off (or up and down)  ONCE, and have  every
command  behave  similarly  in response.  Like an  environment  variable
called  VERBOSE,  or  somesuch.  Of  course,  asking for this  degree of
consistency  in all (where  all = 80%) of the  common  commands  is like
asking for standard flags on those commands...

Speaking of which, does anyone have an across-the-board options summary?
I'd like to see such a thing,  just out of  curiosity.  My  fantasy is a
sorted list of every single-letter option in, say, the System III brick,
with every different meaning shown once followed by a count of number of
occurrences (commands which used that meaning).  I for one would consult
such a list when  designing a new command, so as to be more, rather than
less,  consistent with the established  pattern  (realizing that it just
ain't that simple, all commands are not created equal, etc.).

Alan Silverstein, Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Systems Division, Colorado
ucbvax!hplabs!hpfcla!ajs, 303-226-3800 x3053, N 40 31'31" W 105 00'43"