[Python-Dev] PEP 389: argparse - new command line parsing module

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:59:32 am Steven Bethard wrote:

> Why aren't getopt and optparse enough?
[snip]

As a newbie, I found optparse intimidating because it provided so many 
features. I expect argparse will be the same, only more so. 
(Disclaimer: I haven't used argparse, I'm merely making a prediction 
based on the available functionality.)

As it turned out, optparse wasn't anywhere near as difficult to use as I 
expected it to be, but I suggest that newbies will have the same 
response to argparse as I had to optparse -- "this looks complicated, 
I'll just roll my own". At least I had the option to use getopt.

Not every module needs to be newbie-friendly, but something as 
fundamental as argument parsing should at least provide a gentle 
learning curve.

Currently, getopt more-or-less plays the role of "bare-bones" command 
line parsing, which I think is important. Assuming argparse is added to 
the std lib, I'm -0.5 on deprecating getopt, 0 on deprecating optparse.



-- 
Steven D'Aprano