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From: shaddock@RTI.RTI.ORG (Mike Shaddock)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: For comment: problems with toolkit arg processing/philosophy
Message-ID: <8711101445.AA03460@rtivs1.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Nov-87 09:45:02 EST
Article-I.D.: rtivs1.8711101445.AA03460
Posted: Tue Nov 10 09:45:02 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Nov-87 22:30:36 EST
References: <8711092327.AA11580@maui.cs.ucla.edu>
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I personally dislike the "standard" of single character flags.  There
is nothing wrong with having an option like "-help", or "-name"
(cutting down on typing is not a particularly worthwhile argument).
One of the things that people complain about Unix is "It's too
obscure.  All those funny little non-mnemonic single character
options."  It should also be possible to only have to enter the
unique initial part of the option.  In other words, if a program has
the "-name" option, and that is the only option that begins 'n', then
"-n", "-na", "-nam", and "-name" should work.  This would allow
experienced users to abbreviate things, while inexperienced users
would be able to figure things out more quickly.

I do agree that all options should begin with a a '-', but I do not
think that you should be able to group multiple arguments behind a
single '-' (this would obviously break the verbose commands).  I do
think that the -g (geometry) and -d (display) arguments would be a
good idea; I also dislike using '+' for an argument delimeter.