Current thinking on required options

[Grant Edwards]

On 2021-04-19, Dan Stromberg <drsalists at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 19, 2021 at 2:55 AM Loris Bennett <loris.bennett at fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>
>> However, the options -o, -u, and -g are required, not optional.
>>
>> The documentation
>>
>>   https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html#required
>>
>> advises against required options and here
>>
>>
>> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24180527/argparse-required-arguments-listed-under-optional-arguments
>>
>> a way of adding a section 'required arguments' to the usage is
>> described.
>>
>
> Of _course_ some options need to be required.

Traditionally, required "things" were called arguments and were not
prefixed with a hyphen. Optional "things" were called options (hence
the similarity in spelling between "optional" and "option").

> I can't imagine what the author of that page was thinking.

--
Grant