RE: [boost] Re: Command line syntaxes

From: Schoenborn, Oliver (oliver.schoenborn_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-01-23 18:04:34

> Schoenborn, Oliver wrote:
> > > I'm not clear on the need to distinguish between long and short
> > > option names.  What I would have is a 'minimum abbreviation length'
> > > setting, whereby you must have at least x unambiguous letters of the
> > > option name for it to be recognised.
> >
> > Sorry if this has already been explicitly ruled out, but is there a
reason
> > for not distinguishing between long and short arguments by using - for
> > short and -- for long?  
> 
> I find it the best syntax. In fact, this is what you get with the
predefined 
> "unix" style. However, people was asking for long options names with a
single 
> dash/slash. 
> 
> - Volodya

Yes, but just because users ask for it doesn't mean it is a good feature to
have.  If Stroustrup were to have accepted everything that users wanted into
the C++ language, it would be a mess.  Why not keep things simple, clear,
without sacrificing true versatility? I suspect that only a very small
minority of users would need the long options with one '-' so bad that they
would refuse to use the boost command line library.

Oliver