[jboss-as7-dev] proposed cli changes

[Kabir Khan]

A nice feature would be some history between cli sessions
On 9 Mar 2011, at 12:35, Dimitris Andreadis wrote:

> +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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>>>>> jboss-as7-dev at lists.jboss.org
>>>>> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/jboss-as7-dev
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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
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