[jboss-as7-dev] proposed cli changes

[Dimitris Andreadis]

+1, Max's suggestion make sense to me.

On 07/03/2011 19:03, Max Rydahl Andersen wrote:
>>>> Max, Emanuel and I discussed the usability aspects of the cli today. We
>>>> agreed on the following:
>>>>
>>>> 1) drop the '/' prefix for the commands;
>>>>
>>
>> How does this relate to the discussion of low-level commands vs high level?
>
> It was a long discussion - but let me see if I can summarize what drove this.
>
> There are some subjectivity in parts of this but mostly its driven by not making the
> shell being "weird" compared to what users otherwise sees in the wild...thus / is suggested as a separator to match filesystem and url paths.
>
> When starting up the cli it also just feels so weird and wrong to require typing / to get to a command
> (unless of course you are an IRC guy - but thats not really the audience we cater to is it  ?:)
>
> Thus my suggestion was to make the logic so if you just type a string, i.e. "help"
> then it will mean "execute the command or alias named help" nothing else. Just like a normal shell.
>
> If you want to "execute" something in the current node/path you need to (just like in a bash/zsh etc. without a PATH setup)
> to put ./<path>:<operation>  to execute it.
>
> so the suggested syntax allow you to type things like:
>
> jboss-admin.sh
> $ connect
> [/]  # default connect is root.
> $ cn subsystem=web
> [/subsystem=web]
> $ :read-resource-configuration    #executing operation against current node.
> $ ..:read-resource-configuration # executing against parent node (not sure if this should actually be ../:read-resource-configuration?)
>
> $ cn ../hosts=undefined/server=server1  # up one level and into the path.
> [/hosts=undefined/server=server1]
> $ /subsystem=web:read-resource-configuration # execute based on root ignoring the current node
> [/hosts=undefined/server=server1]
> $ rr     # a command/alias that will execute :read-reosource-configuration
> <return the result>
>
> We even discussed if it should be legal to do:
> [/hosts=undefined/server=server1]
> $ =server2:read-resource-configuration    # execute the operation in context of current nodetype, but change the name vs requiring eplicit typing.
>
> $../server=server2:read-resource-configuration
>
> With this tab completion still can know if it should be completing names, children or operations AND we get a "navigational" syntax that mimicks  well known paths.
>
> We could even go all the way and allowed  / instead of = you could actually copy the paths directly between your curl/browser and the cli - only diff would be the operation syntax.
>
> Hope that gave some more context - at least with these changes the CLI navigation doesn't feel so alien to newbies...their brains can spend more
> energy to actually understand the semantics of the operations than the syntax.
>
> /max
>
>>
>> Other than that question, what you describe here sounds fine (including
>> the 'cd' alias, which I know would be what I'd naturally use).
>
>
>>
>>>> 2) instead of '~' signifying the root node use '/';
>>>>
>>>> 3) instead of ',' as a node separator in the address (node path) use
>>>> '/'. so the format of an operation will look like
>>>>
>>>> [node-type=node-name (/node-type=node-name)*] : operation-name
>>>> ['('param=value (,param=value)*')']
>>>>
>>>> This (2 and 3) will make the path look more linux-like, so hopefully
>>>> more friendly for an admin.
>>>>
>>>> 4) in the same spirit, the tab-completion for operations will start with
>>>> './', e.g. './subsystem=web/connector=http:read-resource'
>>>
>>> or '/' to start from the root (if the current address (prefix) is
>>> something other than the root). e.g.
>>>
>>> [subsystem=web/connector=http] /subsystem-threads:read-resource
>>>
>>>> 5) for the command names, Max likes
>>>> cn (change node) - current /prefix or /to.
>>>> cwn (current working node) - again current /prefix or /to w/o arguments.
>>>>
>>>> I'd even go for cd to change the node. The reason I didn't add it
>>>> originally was 'directory' doesn't belong here. But cd is kind of habit
>>>> for this kind of thing, so I could add it as an alias.
>>>>
>>>> Any objections or suggestions?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Alexey
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Brian Stansberry
>> Principal Software Engineer
>> JBoss by Red Hat
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>
> /max
> http://about.me/maxandersen
>
>
>
>
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-- 
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Dimitris Andreadis
Software Engineering Manager
JBoss Application Server
by Red Hat
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