I love the "long options start with two dashes" convention. It means that you can chose short options that are easily combined (in cases where the command and its options are often used), or you can use long options that are much easier to understand (because they are full words). More command line tools should support them.
I typically use long options in shell scripts that will be checked in or shared with others. The self documenting nature of long opts is much nicer (imho) than the terseness of short ones.
I’m also glad short opts are available for my personal day-to-day work. I spend most of my time in a a terminal and appreciate having short-hand available.
