Re: [Po4a-dev]Changing the option names? Really?

[Martin Quinson]

On Sun, Feb 02, 2003 at 10:25:58PM +0100, Denis Barbier wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 09:32:36PM +0100, Martin Quinson wrote:
> > Hello,
> 
> Hi Martin,
> 
> > I am about changing the option names of all scripts, but I would like to
> > check first what do you guys think. 
> > 
> > Before the questions, the proposal. I plan to use those options in
> > po4a-gettextize, po4a-updatepo, po4a-translate, and maybe in po4a-normalize:
> > 
> >  -m,--master : original document
> >  -M,--master-charset
> >  -t,--trans : translated document [I'm not happy with this one. Looking for
> >                                    a better name]
> 
> -l, --localized?

Yuhu, good.

> >  -T,--trans-charset
> >  -p,--po : po file
> >  [po charset don't exists since the charset information should be clear]
> >  
> >  -a,--addendum:
> >  -A,--addendum-charset
> > 
> >  -f,--format : module po4a (formerlly -t)
> >  -F,--help-format : Lists the available formats
> 
> IMO there is no need for a short option here, you may need this -F flag
> in the future.

ok.
 
> >  -o,--option : I guess we will encounter cases where we *must* pass options
> >                to modules. I don't like this [too error prone], but i'll
> >                have to.
> 
> The GNU way is with --, maybe you could use the same here.
> Moreover -o is often a synonym of --output, so I do not like this short
> option flag.

yup. You're right, that cleaner.

> >  -d,--debug
> >  -v,--verbose
> >  -V,--version
> > 
> >  [po4a-translate specific]
> >  -k,--keep: 
> > 
> > 
> > And now, the question: Are you all happy with those names ?
> > Is this a problem that the same option is used once for an input
> > file, and in another program for an output file (like po is for
> > -gettextize and -translate)?
> >
> > The user will hate me if he calls the wrong binary and if the
> > file get lost because of this. I mean, if I unify the option
> > names between programs, I've no way to check and say "hey, I'm
> > the program which erase the po file and build a new one, not the
> > one doing the contrary", like it is for now since the command
> > line passed to -gettextize will be rejected by other programs.
> > 
> > Sharing the exact same syntax between program argument (even
> > when [or while] having a different semantic for them) is an
> > advantage or a problem?
> 
> Do we need all these command line flags for all scripts?  If
> scripts are run as filters (i.e. po4a-translate < input > output)
> it is much less error prone.  Command line flags could be
> provided, but then users are supposed to know what they do.

The problem is that po4a-translate can't be piped that way, since it
needs two inputs: the po file and the master one.



As you can see, I worked on making po4a ready for CPAN inclusion, but some
more work is needed since the tests written do detect bugs in the code :(

The second bad news is that i'll have absolutelly 0 time to work on this
before next week (two articles deadlines in one week).

Pierre, where do you stand on the front of unrecognized docbook tags? That's
only curiosity. If you don't want to do that anymore, just say it.


Bye, Mt.

-- 
Freedom is not free.