On February 27, 2007, Norman Shapiro <norm@dad.org> wrote:
I would also argue that the +folderName syntax for designating a file name is
strange and unique to mh. If, at the time is was first conceived (by Bruce
Borden) I had thought it through and had I realized that decades later people
would still be using it, I would have vetoed it. Almost all other arguments
syntaxes for doing this either use the --something=fileName syntax and/or a
pair
of arguments.
It's unusual syntax, yeah, but I like how it unambiguously designates folder
names and is also very quick to type. Having to say "--folder=inbox" all
the time would suck. I guess syntax like "show inbox:1" / "refile 2 inbox:"
would have been okay too (and would be similar to the syntax used by
rcp/scp), but of course the colon syntax is used for sequences.
And of course the most common meaning of + in argument syntax is fairly
counterintuitive anyway ("+X" = "turn off option X", since "-X" already
means "turn on option X"), so I don't mind [n]mh using the character for its
own devices. ;^>
--
Dan Harkless
http://harkless.org/dan/
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