[IPython-dev] Unifying command-line conventions for 0.11+: single-dash OK?

[Robert Kern]

On 2010-01-08 17:42 PM, Fernando Perez wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> we currently have in our scripts a mix of -option and --option, and
> we're thinking of unifying things as we move forward.  Now that we're
> using argparse everywhere, it's very easy to choose what we like, and
> my take on this is that the extra - at the beginning is just
> unnecessary typing.  For old code that used getopt it was necessary,
> because getopt interprets -xyz as -x -y -z, but we don't have that
> restriction.

I prefer the -o/--option standard, but mostly because it *is* standard. I 
implicitly associate -option with old/unprofessional software that hacked up its 
own argument parsing because it could.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco