> whereas hget -o file will not replace the file if the server
> or some broken intermediate cache thinks things are up-to-date

that's why i thought it might be reasonable to divorce the "look at
modification time of file" semantics of -o from the "can seek on
output" semantics of same.

i've never used -o as it currently is because i don't trust
computers to keep or record time properly, either here or out there
(i've the same problem with my thinkpad time speeding up as everyone
else).

i'd expect

	hget | wc

to produce the same results as

	hget > file
	wc < file

>  then how about hget -1 meaning "one shot at writing data"

i think the option should the other way around,
e.g. hget -m meaning "multiple shots at writing data.

then the above correspondence still holds.
(and -o still does the same thing)