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I run OpenBSD as my border firewall which it handles very well. One thing I wish that OpenBSD devs would change in their philosophy is the --help messages. Ma

I run OpenBSD as my border firewall which it handles very well. One thing I wish that OpenBSD devs would change in their philosophy is the --help messages. Many commands simply offer a list of switches, as if that's somehow helpful. Sometimes you need the detail in a man page, but a lot of times you don't and it would save so much time and energy to have a succinct list in the --help message itself. # syspatch --help usage: syspatch [-c | -l | -R | -r]

aquabeagle 8y ago
That's a GNUism, so you won't find it in BSD tools.
- mishac 8y ago
  It's a good GNUism though, that I also wish the BSDs supported. No-one's saying that the BSDs should start supporting GNU style --long-options or switch to info instead of man, but friendlier help messages are always a nice thing.
  - JdeBP 8y ago
    Strictly speaking, those are usage messages not help messages.
  - anthk 8y ago
    RTFM
  - justin66 8y ago
    > friendlier help messages are always a nice thing That's not the dispute. It's a question of how much you value brevity. syspatch --help usage: syspatch [-c | -l | -R | -r] looks quite friendly to me, but YMMV.
- jsight 8y ago
  Yeah, but why not adopt it? GNU has done a lot of things right.
kbenson 8y ago
I view it as a trade-off for excellent man pages. Rather than waste time figuring out what the appropriate amoutn of and commands to list in the short help list (especially for commands that might have a lot of and/or complex options), they have very simple rules. List switched with help, list everything and very clearly in the man page. Since I believe they don't accept code patches without relevant man page patches that explain them if they alter the behavior or add/modify an option, this seems like a sane way to avoid bikeshedding on what is essentially superfluous information, since the "appropriate" amount of info to include is ambiguous.
AndyMcConachie 8y ago
Read the manpage. One thing I really dislike about modern UNIXes is their lack of decent manpages in place of standins like --help. I love the BSDs and especially OpenBSD for their attention to manpages. It's the main reason why I don't use Linux anymore unless I have to. Adding detailed --help messages would take time away from maintaining manpages, it also presents a duplication of information. If you want to know what the switches do, read the manpage.
- 0xFFFE 8y ago
  Indeed, as an example "ls --help" on Linux prints at least 3 pages of information on stdout. I would rather read top quality man page and have a succinct "-h" message.
- atmosx 8y ago
  How do you live without docker containers? The fact that docker doesn’t run on BSDs is what drove me away.
  - yellowapple 8y ago
    ...the same way the world has managed to survive for decades without Linux containers in general (let alone specific wrappers around that like Docker is)? With OpenBSD specifically, you can get 90% of the way there with chroots, standard process isolation, and a bit of shell scripting to handle deployment automation. Yeah, Docker's cool, but it's really not that hard to run multiple applications/services on the same physical machine while keeping them from clobbering each other or the OS in general (step 1 being to make sure each service/daemon is running under its own minimally-privileged user).
    - toyg 8y ago
      > With OpenBSD specifically, you can get 90% of the way there with chroots, standard process isolation, and a bit of shell scripting This is a classic case of "THAT HackerNews response to Dropbox" [1]. If it's that easy, why isn't there a prepackaged wrapper with simple switches, rather than leaving developers to fight for themselves among piles of custom hacks? The problem is not just deployment, the Docker differentiation is simplification of the development pipeline. OpenBSD should seriously look at their story in that area, because it's one of the few where they could still potentially compete (because Docker is still fundamentally a pile of hacks, and pretty insecure too). Unless, of course, everyone is happy to remain "the little project that could" and crack jokes like the BCHS stack. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

aquabeagle 8y ago

That's a GNUism, so you won't find it in BSD tools.

mishac 8y ago
It's a good GNUism though, that I also wish the BSDs supported. No-one's saying that the BSDs should start supporting GNU style --long-options or switch to info instead of man, but friendlier help messages are always a nice thing.
- JdeBP 8y ago
  Strictly speaking, those are usage messages not help messages.
- anthk 8y ago
  RTFM
- justin66 8y ago
  > friendlier help messages are always a nice thing That's not the dispute. It's a question of how much you value brevity. syspatch --help usage: syspatch [-c | -l | -R | -r] looks quite friendly to me, but YMMV.
jsight 8y ago
Yeah, but why not adopt it? GNU has done a lot of things right.

kbenson 8y ago

I view it as a trade-off for excellent man pages. Rather than waste time figuring out what the appropriate amoutn of and commands to list in the short help list (especially for commands that might have a lot of and/or complex options), they have very simple rules. List switched with help, list everything and very clearly in the man page. Since I believe they don't accept code patches without relevant man page patches that explain them if they alter the behavior or add/modify an option, this seems like a sane way to avoid bikeshedding on what is essentially superfluous information, since the "appropriate" amount of info to include is ambiguous.

AndyMcConachie 8y ago

Read the manpage. One thing I really dislike about modern UNIXes is their lack of decent manpages in place of standins like --help. I love the BSDs and especially OpenBSD for their attention to manpages. It's the main reason why I don't use Linux anymore unless I have to. Adding detailed --help messages would take time away from maintaining manpages, it also presents a duplication of information. If you want to know what the switches do, read the manpage.

0xFFFE 8y ago
Indeed, as an example "ls --help" on Linux prints at least 3 pages of information on stdout. I would rather read top quality man page and have a succinct "-h" message.
atmosx 8y ago
How do you live without docker containers? The fact that docker doesn’t run on BSDs is what drove me away.
- yellowapple 8y ago
  ...the same way the world has managed to survive for decades without Linux containers in general (let alone specific wrappers around that like Docker is)? With OpenBSD specifically, you can get 90% of the way there with chroots, standard process isolation, and a bit of shell scripting to handle deployment automation. Yeah, Docker's cool, but it's really not that hard to run multiple applications/services on the same physical machine while keeping them from clobbering each other or the OS in general (step 1 being to make sure each service/daemon is running under its own minimally-privileged user).
  - toyg 8y ago
    > With OpenBSD specifically, you can get 90% of the way there with chroots, standard process isolation, and a bit of shell scripting This is a classic case of "THAT HackerNews response to Dropbox" [1]. If it's that easy, why isn't there a prepackaged wrapper with simple switches, rather than leaving developers to fight for themselves among piles of custom hacks? The problem is not just deployment, the Docker differentiation is simplification of the development pipeline. OpenBSD should seriously look at their story in that area, because it's one of the few where they could still potentially compete (because Docker is still fundamentally a pile of hacks, and pretty insecure too). Unless, of course, everyone is happy to remain "the little project that could" and crack jokes like the BCHS stack. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224