Re: [Gpsbabel-code] Re: One other tiny thing... -V

[Rick R. <ri...@mn...>]

On Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 09:39:45AM -0500, Ron Parker wrote:
> At 03:38 PM 6/8/2004 -0500, Robert Lipe wrote:
>  >> (by the way, am I the only one who's annoyed that babel doesn't just
>  >> print the usage statement when it's invoked without any arguments?)
>  >
>  >Since I never do that, it doesn't bother me.

My usual personal policy is to dump the complete usage message on any
command line error and with the -? and -h options. If the program
doesn't act as a filter or do anything useful with no arguments, then
that also gets the usage message dump.

I consider the option name "--help" to be a GNU/(RMS?) botch, and never
explicity code for that.  It gets the usage message anyway, under the
case "command line error".  I've often thought about outputting a page
of commentary in all of my command line programs when given --help on
why I condsider --help harmful.  But so far I have not been loaded
enough at an opportune time to go that far :-).

I agree that output like "Try --help to get help" is another GNU botch.

> What's everyone think of this?  (Sorry for the big diff; I'm not

I don't like the 's in the usage message text.  I'd rather see
embedded spaces or tabs.  Pick your poison.

The reason being twofold:
    1) I like to be able to read the usage() in the code itself.
    2) Its easier to get the formatting right without the \t's

Perhaps the best solution is to use spaces, and formatted so that the
(two) columns never line up on an 8 space boundary.  Then, tab likers
won't be tempted (as much) to put tabs into spaced entries, and space
likers won't be tempted to put spaces into tabbed entries.  (where the
"right" way is spaced entries and tabbed entries, respectively).

-Rick

-- 
Rick Richardson  ri...@mn...    http://home.mn.rr.com/richardsons/
Linux tools for geocaching          http://geo.rkkda.com

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