The most essential principle of UserInterface design.
* By default provide only critical errors,
* by --quiet provide '''NO''' errors,
* and --verbose provide all the errors you want.

This is also covered in The Art of Unix Programming: "Rule of Silence: When a program has nothing surprising to say, it should say nothing."

http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html#id2878450

A perfect example of a horribly designed interface is HTML Tidy. It can't be made to shut the *bleep* up as '''-quiet''' still provides several thousand useless warnings.

See also SilentFailureNoisySuccess

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CategoryUserInterface