[darcs-users] Command line options

[Florent Becker]

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Le 15/12/2010 19:34, Dan Pascu a écrit :
> 
> I noticed there is some inconsistency with the command line options. We
> have so called 'positive' switches that describe an action/condition,
> like --set-default or --allow-conflicts and then we have the so called
> 'negative' switches that are the opposite of the 'positive' switches.
> The 'negative' switches are not very consistent. For example we have
> --dont-allow-conflicts and --no-set-default as counterparts for the
> aforementioned 'positive' switches.
> 
> I think some of them may benefit from a review and some adjusting. Those
> that describe a negated action should use --dont-something when
> something is an actiob. In my example --no-set-default could benefit
> from that.
> 
I tried to do that some time ago, and I ended up putting --no-
everywhere, which seems simpler for non-native english speaker, and
because I feel consistency wins over grammatical correctness, especially
given that a command line is not a correct sentence at all to begin
with. Otherwise, you have to deal with ambiguities (no-test or
dont-test); then, for completeness, adverbs/adjectives should be
prefixed by not (not verbose/not unified; not recursive is in, though).
I leave advanced topics such as the negation of apply-as as an exercise
for the reader…

It seems simpler to me to just have consistently --no- everywhere, even
if it's harder on the ear. So it's actually the '--dont's that are being
(very passively) deprecated. Hence the inconsistency. It would be a good
idea indeed to check the documentation with respect to that.

That leaves us with "dont-prompt-for-dependencies", which we could
rename "with-implicit-dependencies" or "auto-dependencies" to make its
function clearer (Thoughts?).

Florent
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