I write a lot of shell scripts as part of my daily Sys Admin work. In my opinion, the author gave us choice to write less codes & readable code by using short flags for most of the command functionalities.

Consider something like this: $ rsync -qaogtHr example.com:/opt/data/ /home/backup/

1. Elaborating all the short flags into long ones will increase readability by explaining this statement but at the cost of more lines of code.

2. All UNIX commands have options to combine short flags. For eg: ls -l -t -r ./ can be written as: ls -ltr ./ This also helps in reducing code. Writing less code helps in managing it more easily.

Long options may help beginners, but once they get comfortable, Short flags may seem more readable!!