inconsistent commands and options ... a problem?

[Matt Mackall]

On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 07:28:34PM +0200, solo turn wrote:
> i d appreciate if every commands gives an output, so you do not have
> to run a second one to find out what happened.
> 
> standard seems to be "--quiet" for no output. not in mercurial though.

Absolutely not. If a command's output contains no more information
than "I did precisely what you asked me to", it's wasting the user's
time.

Here are some "standard" commands that typically generate no output:

cp -a
cc
tar xf myarchive.tar
grep nonexistent *
rm -rf ~

(Further, if you don't know precisely what rm -rf ~ does before you
run it, you will have just received a highly valuable life lesson in
using power tools free of charge.)

-- 
Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.