Re: [boost] Re: Command Line Parser

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-03-02 12:12:28

At 02:46 PM 3/2/2001 +0000, williamkempf_at_[hidden] wrote:

 >> http://www.enteract.com/~bradapp/ftp/src/libs/C++/Options.html.
 >
 >I've looked at his library as well in the past.  In many ways his
 >design is very nice and allows for things that mine does not.  For
 >instance, it automatically generates usage instructions based on the
 >defined options.  It also lets you create new "option types" that can
 >parse unusual option syntax.  However, what makes this library nice
 >is also what I didn't like about it ;).  Since it generates the usage
 >instructions you're locked into only one way of parsing command line
 >options (a very flexible way, yes, but I can still see ways in which
 >it's not flexible enough, mostly when locality matters).  It's also
 >prone to ambiguous parsing problems if you're not careful with how
 >you define the options, and while this is true for any parser it's
 >less obvious when this will occur with his.

The case comes up over and over where Library Complete is truly wondrous, 
but Library Simple provides 90% of the same functionality, yet in only 30% 
of the lines of code.

Now if Library Complete's added functionality would only rarely be used, 
and comes at the cost of being harder to learn or use, or more error prone, 
you might find that users actually preferred Library Simple.

Without looking at either Command Line Parser, my guess is that simple 
would win out over complete in this application.  KISS.

--Beman