From: Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>
To: Bakul Shah <bakul@iitbombay.org>
Cc: TUHS main list <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Systematic approach to command-line interfaces [ meta issues ]
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2021 15:13:17 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20210731221317.GG23759@mcvoy.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <3598EE71-E652-43EF-B1AB-91CB8B3D577A@iitbombay.org>
On Sat, Jul 31, 2021 at 03:04:48PM -0700, Bakul Shah wrote:
> On Jul 31, 2021, at 12:20 PM, Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com> wrote:
> >
> > So I never got getopt(). One of my rules is that I don't use a library
> > in cases where the number of lines of gunk that that it takes to use a
> > library function is >= the number of lines to just write it myself. Yeah,
> > I know the "but the library has more eyeballs and is debugged" argument
> > but in reality libraries are the source of many bugs. I've always taken
> > the approach that I would never hire someone who had to use a library to
> > implement a singly-linked list.
>
> getopt() is perhaps the wrong solution but consider something like MH,
> whose commands all follow a common pattern. Consider:
>
> - options (switches) all start with a single '-'
> - they may be abbreviated to a unique prefix.
That last one is a gotcha waiting to happen:
program --this-is-the-long-option
is the same as
program --this
but that will break scripts (and fingers) when program gets a new
option like
program --this-is-the-even-longer-option
We wrote our own getopt() for BitKeeper and it had long and short options
but no gotcha unique prefix.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-07-31 22:13 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 72+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-07-31 12:25 [TUHS] Systematic approach to command-line interfaces Michael Siegel
2021-07-31 13:05 ` Dan Halbert
2021-07-31 14:21 ` Adam Thornton
2021-07-31 14:25 ` Adam Thornton
2021-07-31 15:45 ` Richard Salz
2021-07-31 16:03 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-31 16:06 ` Richard Salz
2021-07-31 16:21 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-31 16:17 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-31 16:30 ` Dan Cross
2021-07-31 15:56 ` Paul Winalski
2021-07-31 16:19 ` Dan Cross
2021-08-01 17:44 ` Chet Ramey
2021-08-01 21:53 ` Dan Cross
2021-08-01 23:21 ` Chet Ramey
2021-08-01 23:36 ` John Cowan
2021-08-01 23:49 ` Larry McVoy
2021-08-02 0:28 ` Larry McVoy
2021-08-01 23:58 ` Dan Cross
2021-08-02 0:29 ` Steve Nickolas
2021-08-02 0:13 ` Andrew Warkentin
2021-08-02 0:18 ` John Cowan
2021-08-02 0:54 ` Andrew Warkentin
2021-08-02 1:04 ` Dan Cross
2021-08-02 1:05 ` Theodore Ts'o
2021-08-02 2:10 ` Andrew Warkentin
2021-08-02 2:32 ` Bakul Shah
2021-08-02 17:33 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2021-09-28 17:46 ` Greg A. Woods
2021-09-28 18:10 ` Larry McVoy
2021-09-29 16:40 ` Greg A. Woods
2021-09-29 16:57 ` Larry McVoy
2021-09-30 17:31 ` Greg A. Woods
2021-09-29 23:10 ` Phil Budne
2021-08-02 17:37 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2021-08-02 18:52 ` Clem Cole
2021-08-02 20:59 ` John Cowan
2021-08-02 21:06 ` Al Kossow
2021-08-02 21:14 ` Clem Cole
2021-08-02 21:13 ` Clem Cole
2021-08-01 16:51 ` Michael Siegel
2021-08-01 17:31 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 16:41 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-31 17:41 ` John Cowan
2021-07-31 17:30 ` Anthony Martin
2021-07-31 17:46 ` John Cowan
2021-07-31 18:56 ` Michael Siegel
2021-07-31 19:41 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-31 21:30 ` Michael Siegel
2021-08-01 17:48 ` Chet Ramey
2021-08-01 19:23 ` Richard Salz
2021-08-01 23:26 ` Chet Ramey
2021-07-31 19:20 ` [TUHS] Systematic approach to command-line interfaces [ meta issues ] Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 21:06 ` Richard Salz
2021-07-31 21:32 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 21:37 ` Richard Salz
2021-07-31 21:55 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 22:10 ` Warner Losh
2021-07-31 22:19 ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-31 22:20 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 23:26 ` Warner Losh
2021-07-31 23:41 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 22:04 ` Bakul Shah
2021-07-31 22:13 ` Larry McVoy [this message]
2021-07-31 22:14 ` Bakul Shah
2021-07-31 22:17 ` Bakul Shah
2021-07-31 22:16 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-31 22:20 ` Bakul Shah
2021-08-01 18:17 Douglas McIlroy
2021-08-01 19:48 ` arnold
2021-08-01 21:30 ` John Cowan
2021-08-02 12:11 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
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