Re: when options conflict

[Tony Abou-Assaleh]

> > In my opinion grep is now doing precisely the right thing: make no
> > fuss when it is clear what the end result should be.
>
> It is not clear at all.  The relationship among options is way too
> complicated.  The complexity is not documented.  And it should not be
> documented, as that would be a disserverice to the vast majority of
> users.

In principle, I am totally against intentionally not documenting features
of a program that exist for a purpose other than debugging the program.

I also recognize that complicating docs makes them less useful for the
average user. One way around it could be to have a 'common usage' section
that is somewhat similar to what we have now, and augment it with an
'advanced usage' or 'notes' section that describes the complex
interactions between options.

The main point is separating the two. How to separate is another issue,
and perl docs give some examples. E.g., we could have 2 man pages, with
basic one referring to the advanced one in the 'see also' section.

Cheers,

TAA

-----------------------------------------------------
Tony Abou-Assaleh
Lecturer, Computer Science Department
Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada, L2S 3A1
Office: MC J215
Tel:    +1(905)688-5550 ext. 5243
Fax:    +1(905)688-3255
Email:  address@hidden
WWW:    http://www.cosc.brocku.ca/~taa/
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