Re: Suggest to use more long options arguments at /etc/makepkg.conf

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On 2022-12-14 at 06:02:58 +0300,
Greg Minshall <minshall@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 2QdxY4RzWzUUiLuE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> > Now who told tar and ps that they don't need the dash?  ;-)
> 
> probably you didn't *really* want a history lesson (which i'm not
> *really* qualified to give), but in the 1980s there was an effort to
> standardize all this.  earlier commands had, or hadn't, used a dash.
> dashes were now considered a requirement.  but, there would have been a
> grandfather clause for, e.g., ps, tar, and friends.

IIRC, SystemV ps required a dash (which is why I type "ps -ef"), but BSD
ps didn't/doesn't (which is why I still type "ps -auxww").

> slightly later, but still, i think, in the 1980s, long options were
> standardized to use two dashes.  but, again, grandfathered in were no
> dashes (like dd), one dash (like [n]mh).

Long options are *not* standardized, at least not in the sense that
there's a specification from which to write a parser.⁰  Certain specific
options are pervasive (e.g., --verbose) and enshrined in GNU
guidelines.¹

> on the main subject, but still historical, i am reminded of the
> arguments we had about GUI versus command line interfaces for actual
> computer operators (tapes, disk drives, print out, card readers,
> etc.).  for novice operators, or even experienced operators using rare
> commands, a GUI was desirable.  for experienced operators doing the
> same thing over and over again, the command line.  (sadly, i don't see
> the relevance here!)

Old xterm man pages contained the "bug" that most commands hadn't been
rewritten for X11.  And here we are, four decades later, inventing all
manner of kluges to automate and/or script GUIs (and don't even get me
started on the WWW).  :-)

Apple's AU/X had (I don't use MacOS X now) a thing called Commando,
which turned a machine-readable description of a program's command line
arguments into a dialong box, a sort of "best of both worlds" solution.

⁰ https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap12.html
¹ https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html



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