[jboss-as7-dev] proposed cli changes

[Max Rydahl Andersen]

> A nice feature would be some history between cli sessions

agreed....

one thought though - is the intent to make the jboss-admin a full blown shell like experience or is that
better served by other means ? i.e. integrate the cli into something like Seam Forge and we benefit
from all the work in that shell...

...or using some clever bash/zsh magic to actually provide tab completion of AS7 commands on a normal command line ?

/max

> 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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>>>> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/jboss-as7-dev
>>> 
>>> /max
>>> http://about.me/maxandersen
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> -- 
>> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Dimitris Andreadis
>> Software Engineering Manager
>> JBoss Application Server
>> by Red Hat
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>> 
>> http://dandreadis.blogspot.com/
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/max
http://about.me/maxandersen