I just type "help" into anything that looks like a prompt. From there things are usually discoverable enough, and if not, now I have strings, that I can C/P straight into a search engine. ;)
Python help: Can’t open file ‘help’: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Python -help: Unknown option: -e
Python —-help: actual help
Stupid users, it’s so intuitive!
(PS it always bugs me that every program uses a different option for checking the version. Node is -v, python is -V, dotnet is —-version. Again, couldn’t be more intuitive, duck users, right?)
I actually didn't know about python -V! python also accepts --version, but if you give it -v, that's verbose, which will only confuse people more. I believe java used to only accept -version with one hyphen, but now it accepts --version with two as well.
OpenBSD has a help command that’s basically just an alias for man, except without arguments it opens the manpage for help(1)¹. GNU help is a bash builtin for help with bash builtins, but does redirect to more general help.
GNU bash, version 5.0.17(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
These shell commands are defined internally. Type `help' to see this list.
Type `help name' to find out more about the function `name'.
Use `info bash' to find out more about the shell in general.
Use `man -k' or `info' to find out more about commands not in this list.
I read your post. You’re assuming a level of confidence that most non-programmers don’t have. I googled that exact message and nothing helpful came up.