🚀 go-pugleaf

Are there any research results that indicate that verbose commands
actually are easier to use in practise?  Is COBOL easier to use than C
because of its verbose syntax?  (How often do people use the optional
long options to SunView tools?)

Even if optional long flags reduce learning time, are they so much of an
improvement as to make the extra complexity of the programs worthwhile?
Remember that a more *complex* interface generally makes it *harder* to
learn, whether the extra complexity is in the name of user-friendliness
or not.  Remember also that a system slowed 10% by parsing umteen
unnecessary multi-character strings is slowed down for the experts, too.

How much of a reduction in average learning time would justify the
resources frittered away on parsing long options?  10%?  50%?  1%?

 //- Damian Cugley - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -\ 
 ||  Oxford University Computing Laboratory, 11 Keble Rd, Oxford, UK  ||
 ||  pdc@prg.ox.ac.uk or pdc@uk.ac.ox.prg in UK  "Be nice to people"  ||
  \- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -//

irrelevant aside:

DOT SLASH DOT SLASH DOT SLASH DOT SLASH DOT SLASH DOT SLASH DOT SLASH 

> If you write a shell script for a POSIX system, you can expect
> 	ls -l +something
> to write the long listing for the file called `+something'.
> On a GNU system you would have to write something like 
> 	ls -l -- +something
> to get the same effect.

You might as well try the usual dot slash trick

	ls -l ./+something

which works on traditional UNIX too (anyone here remember UNIX?).

For more information about using ./ as a solution to all your
disambiguation needs, see comp.unix.*.

(The point that this means it isn't 100% POSIX when in non-POSIX mode taken.)