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Lets compare the length of the man page: $ man curl | wc -l 1728 $ man wget | wc -l 1096 How about the --help output? $ curl --help | wc

Lets compare the length of the man page: $ man curl | wc -l 1728 $ man wget | wc -l 1096 How about the --help output? $ curl --help | wc -l 178 $ wget --help | wc -l 176 The wget help is nicer, grouping options together by category and with longer text. curl just has a long list of options in alphabetical order. How many (long) options do they have? $ curl --help | grep -- -- | wc -l 175 $ wget --help | grep -- -- | wc -l 137 I'd say it is a lot quicker to work out the flags etc you need with wget because there is less to look through.

LukeShu 11y ago
"I'm glad I typed `man wget` instead of `wget --help`" -- no one ever You want the `wget --help` text over the man page, 99% of the time. The other 1%, you want the full info manual. The man page is an awful mix between the two; too dense for scanning through for the flag you need, but not containing the full information when you need specifics.
- ars 11y ago
  > no one ever Except [at least] me. I like man better because it's consistent. Some tools want --help, -help, -h, -H, -\? etc. I like man better because I can search it. I like man better because it gives me the details, not just a list.
  - LukeShu 11y ago
    For all of the reasons you gave (except search--that's what grep is for), I usually reach for `man`. But, for wget the information density of the man page is just wrong. At least these days it has some more information in it--it used to just be a reformatted version of the --help text, plugged into a generic template.
    - ars 11y ago
      grep on help output is annoying sometimes since many programs send it on stderr and you need to redirect it if you want to pipe it to grep. Plus even if grep matched something you can't read the context without extra options. man is much easier than doing all that, but the time you have your full search command you would have already gotten your info from man.
      - phs2501 11y ago
        |& is useful in these cases, as it redirects both stdout and stderr to the piped process's stdin. It's a cshism, but it works in both zsh and modern bash. Much nicer than typing cmd 2>&1 | cmd. For context try grep -2, where 2 is the desired lines of context. $ wget --help |& grep -2 base -i, --input-file=FILE download URLs found in local or external FILE -F, --force-html treat input file as HTML -B, --base=URL resolves HTML input-file links (-i -F) relative to URL --config=FILE specify config file to use -- existing files (overwriting them) -c, --continue resume getting a partially-downloaded file --start-pos=OFFSET start downloading from zero-based position OFFSET --progress=TYPE select progress gauge type --show-progress display the progress bar in any verbosity mode (Not that I'm arguing that this is an excuse for wget's [and GNU projects' in general] man pages sucking, but it's a useful workaround.)
        ars 11y ago
        I know how to do it, that's not the question. But rather, doing all that seems easier than man to you?
- jandrese 11y ago
  I really wish the GNU foundation would give up on info pages. Just admit failure and condense them down into full info manpages that I can search easily instead of having to use their 1980s version of a web browser with its awful EMACS-like keybinds.
vacri 11y ago
> help is nicer, grouping options together by category ... vs ... long list of options in alphabetical order. Honestly, either is good. Grouping options is good if you don't know what you're looking for, and alphabetical is good if you do. The bad ones are like the help page for rsync - a ton of options, with no semantic ordering at all.
alphapapa 11y ago
I recommend using this script[1] and aliasing it to "man". Saves so much time over loading man pages and searching through them. For example, with it aliased to "man", you can run "man wget continue" or "man find -exec" and get just the relevant parts of the man page. And "man git commit -a" also works, despite the separated command name. 1: https://gist.github.com/alphapapa/3cba3ff196147ad42bac https://gist.github.com/alphapapa/3cba3ff196147ad42bac

LukeShu 11y ago

"I'm glad I typed `man wget` instead of `wget --help`" -- no one ever You want the `wget --help` text over the man page, 99% of the time. The other 1%, you want the full info manual. The man page is an awful mix between the two; too dense for scanning through for the flag you need, but not containing the full information when you need specifics.

ars 11y ago
> no one ever Except [at least] me. I like man better because it's consistent. Some tools want --help, -help, -h, -H, -\? etc. I like man better because I can search it. I like man better because it gives me the details, not just a list.
- LukeShu 11y ago
  For all of the reasons you gave (except search--that's what grep is for), I usually reach for `man`. But, for wget the information density of the man page is just wrong. At least these days it has some more information in it--it used to just be a reformatted version of the --help text, plugged into a generic template.
  - ars 11y ago
    grep on help output is annoying sometimes since many programs send it on stderr and you need to redirect it if you want to pipe it to grep. Plus even if grep matched something you can't read the context without extra options. man is much easier than doing all that, but the time you have your full search command you would have already gotten your info from man.
    - phs2501 11y ago
      |& is useful in these cases, as it redirects both stdout and stderr to the piped process's stdin. It's a cshism, but it works in both zsh and modern bash. Much nicer than typing cmd 2>&1 | cmd. For context try grep -2, where 2 is the desired lines of context. $ wget --help |& grep -2 base -i, --input-file=FILE download URLs found in local or external FILE -F, --force-html treat input file as HTML -B, --base=URL resolves HTML input-file links (-i -F) relative to URL --config=FILE specify config file to use -- existing files (overwriting them) -c, --continue resume getting a partially-downloaded file --start-pos=OFFSET start downloading from zero-based position OFFSET --progress=TYPE select progress gauge type --show-progress display the progress bar in any verbosity mode (Not that I'm arguing that this is an excuse for wget's [and GNU projects' in general] man pages sucking, but it's a useful workaround.)
      - ars 11y ago
        I know how to do it, that's not the question. But rather, doing all that seems easier than man to you?
jandrese 11y ago
I really wish the GNU foundation would give up on info pages. Just admit failure and condense them down into full info manpages that I can search easily instead of having to use their 1980s version of a web browser with its awful EMACS-like keybinds.

vacri 11y ago

> help is nicer, grouping options together by category ... vs ... long list of options in alphabetical order. Honestly, either is good. Grouping options is good if you don't know what you're looking for, and alphabetical is good if you do. The bad ones are like the help page for rsync - a ton of options, with no semantic ordering at all.

alphapapa 11y ago

I recommend using this script[1] and aliasing it to "man". Saves so much time over loading man pages and searching through them. For example, with it aliased to "man", you can run "man wget continue" or "man find -exec" and get just the relevant parts of the man page. And "man git commit -a" also works, despite the separated command name. 1: https://gist.github.com/alphapapa/3cba3ff196147ad42bac https://gist.github.com/alphapapa/3cba3ff196147ad42bac