It's very similar to every other CLI program, I really don't understand what kind of usability issue you're implying is unique to tar?

As has been clearly demonstrated in this very thread, why is "Please list what files are in this archive" the option "-t"?

Principle of least surprise and all that.

	▲	encom 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		And why is -v the short option for --invert-match in grep, when that's usually --verbose or --version in lots of other places. These idiosyncrasies are hardly unique to tar.