One of my huge frustrations is the inconsistency between various apps or even in the same app.
Sometimes it's "executable -help" or "executable --help", sometimes it's executable -h, or --h.
I also find it really annoying when running a bad/wrong/typoed command doesn't give you a "You wrote fkuc but did you mean ...." those are super helpful.
IMO, if you use --help, you also should be using -help, and -h --h, unless you're using C and c to seperate two different commands. Which I don't like AT ALL. Don't make --help show help but --HELP show something different. Use a different word/letter.
I write TUI apps ALL the time and it's not hard to do ANY of this. It's super easy in go and ruby. There are two big things I do - I add CLI flags that you can run directly - "executable --help" which does the same thing as opening the TUI app with a nice little TUI menu where anyone can use it and select their options and put a couple of inputs in to get what they want done. So, if you DON'T want the potentially slighty slower of uising the TUI vs a CLI command with a few flags you can just run the commands directly.
Hell, if someone puts the wrong CLI --flag in instead of letting it just bomb with a *nix error have it echo the actual command flags. Don't make me have to dig around for commands.
And don't send me to your manpage with --help. God I hate that. Manpages sometimes are absolutely awful. I want ONE command flag that you made some esoteric word for, I want a nice concise list of the flags. I do NOT want a 5 page manpage written so dry and cumbersome that it's such a pain to read that we have other cheatsheet apps.. I ONLY want the manpage if I ask for the manpage.
Sometimes it's "executable -help" or "executable --help", sometimes it's executable -h, or --h.
I also find it really annoying when running a bad/wrong/typoed command doesn't give you a "You wrote fkuc but did you mean ...." those are super helpful.
IMO, if you use --help, you also should be using -help, and -h --h, unless you're using C and c to seperate two different commands. Which I don't like AT ALL. Don't make --help show help but --HELP show something different. Use a different word/letter.
I write TUI apps ALL the time and it's not hard to do ANY of this. It's super easy in go and ruby. There are two big things I do - I add CLI flags that you can run directly - "executable --help" which does the same thing as opening the TUI app with a nice little TUI menu where anyone can use it and select their options and put a couple of inputs in to get what they want done. So, if you DON'T want the potentially slighty slower of uising the TUI vs a CLI command with a few flags you can just run the commands directly.
Hell, if someone puts the wrong CLI --flag in instead of letting it just bomb with a *nix error have it echo the actual command flags. Don't make me have to dig around for commands.
And don't send me to your manpage with --help. God I hate that. Manpages sometimes are absolutely awful. I want ONE command flag that you made some esoteric word for, I want a nice concise list of the flags. I do NOT want a 5 page manpage written so dry and cumbersome that it's such a pain to read that we have other cheatsheet apps.. I ONLY want the manpage if I ask for the manpage.