On Wed, Dec 20 2017, Jani Nikula <jani@nikula.org> wrote:
> Matter of taste. I like the self-documenting aspect of *what* these
> options control. --output=body is obvious, --body is less
> so. --include-html includes html somewhere, I think --output=html would
> be better.
>
> In the spirit of worse is better, I'll note that using --output= stores
> all the possible values in a single bit mask, and it's easy to define
> the defaults for *all* possible outputs in one variable, and it's easy
> to check *all* possible combinations with bit masks. Not so with
> independent parameters. Again, matter of taste how much you appreciate
> implementation simplicity. With notmuch show, I think that guideline
> would have made the interface better too. YMMV.
>
> As to notmuch address --output=address, it fulfills all the feature
> needs that popped up in this thread. If there's a strong desired to
> change the interface, we'll need patches as this one's already merged.

I'm less interested in specific argument formatting than I am in
consistency across the interface.  I just don't like how --output= now
has quite different semantics between the different sub commands.  That
seems like the wrong direction to me.

jamie.