argparse vs getopt

[Eric S. Raymond]

Gary E. Miller via devel <devel at ntpsec.org>:
> > You might want to think about this, though: the problem with argparse
> > is that it has hidden state and magic action at a distance.  You
> > shouldn't stop at the correct observation that the compactness of an
> > argparse spec makes it look simpler; you should ask whether the gains
> > in compactness are outdone by the probable increase in downstream
> > error rates due to unexpected behavior that you can't spot by looking
> > at the surface code.
> 
> Whoa!  Where did that come from!  Please support that argument with
> some facts.

I don't *know* that argparse fails in this way, though I have dark
suspicions about it.  I was trying to educate Ian in thinking about
the ways that technical debt and the attendent increase in defect
rates can creep up on one.
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