[getopt-sig] there isn't really any discussion here

[Tim Peters]

[Tim]
> + Auto-generating a help msg in a uniform-across-clients way is also
>   a value.  Ditto forcing all clients to have the same meaning for -h.

[Greg Ward]
> It would be neat if there was a way for clients to provide helpful hints
> for occasions where Optik botches the formatting of the help, as I'm
> sure could happen.

It's quite possibly better if clients learn to write option help strings such that Optik
doesn't botch the formatting.  Uniformity across apps is a real value to end users (if
the "tar" example showed anything, it's in part why it takes years to become truly fluent
with the Unix toolset <0.6 wink>).

> Also, Optik doesn't *force* all clients to have -h/--help; you can
> always create your own OptionParser subclass with no standard help
> option.  But it's awkward and difficult to do so, which is just as good
> as force.

Well, you can subclass Random and Queue too, but not one in a thousand is obsessed enough
to bother.  For mass use, a framework is valuable to the extent that most programmers can
and do use it without extending.  Most people want something that cracks their
(well-designed <wink>) cmdline out of the box.  Optik looks very good on that count, and
anyone overriding default -h behavior is at best anti-social.