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Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: More descriptive help summary
From: |
Thomas Keller |
Subject: |
Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: More descriptive help summary |
Date: |
Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:28:10 +0200 |
User-agent: |
Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (Macintosh/20070221) |
Julio M. Merino Vidal schrieb:
> I've pushed some changes into the net.venge.monotone.help-rewrite
> branch. It holds a proof of concept of these changes to the help
> command. There is still work to do though, so do not consider this final.
>
> Comments welcome!
I've build your recent rev (ab1af5b230e686b0b24d5557bcb0780fbea0f77c)
and here are my ramblings:
a) I'd really like to see aliases for commands grouped to the particular
command, so instead
Commands to manipulate the tree:
checkout Checks out a revision from the database into a directory
co Checks out a revision from the database into a directory
something like
Commands to manipulate the tree:
checkout (co) Checks out a revision from the database into a directory
(one or more aliases would go into into braces, separated by comma) or
Commands to manipulate the tree:
checkout|co Checks out a revision from the database into a directory
(the alias(es) are separated by a pipe from the main command, which
takes less space
b) From my personal view I'd improve the naming of the command groups so
they do not all have to start with "Commands (that|for|to)", which is
IMHO not needed:
automation Aid for scripted execution
database Manipulate the database
debug Aid in program debugging
informative Retrieve information
key and cert Manage keys and certificates
network Access the network
packet i/o Read and write packets
rcs Interact with RCS and CVS
review Review revisions
tree Manipulate the tree
vars Manage persistent variables
workspace Deal with the workspace
Note that I'm not a native English speaker, so some of these could mean
foobar, but you should get the idea.
c) If we're at it, I think we should re-group some items... f.e. the
"heads" command doesn't actually manipulate the tree, so it shouldn't be
grouped in there, but rather into the "information" group. And what
about merge_into_workspace? Yes, this is a merge command, but on the
other side it doesn't affect the tree in the database, as it writes out
a merge revision into the workspace, so maybe it would be better grouped
in there?
d) Furthermore, as William already proposed, I'd really like to see
proper help machinery for subcommands as well. We're having now a couple
of commands which take sub commands (db, ls, automate), and while some
might say "ls is crappy and should be replaced anyways", there is still
db and automate which needs our attention.
e) And finally, this is something that also affects the options setup
and maybe the general understanding of arguments and options, and maybe
its just my understanding of options that is still incomplete.
However, I always think of an option as of something completly optional,
i.e. the command will output / do something reasonable even without
giving this implicit option.
Now some commands (checkout, clone, etc.) have two or more possible
options (in this case --revision and --branch), which are not completly
optional, but more of a "either this or that or both" deal. I wonder how
one can make this particular circumstance more explicit to the novice user?
Thomas.
--
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- [Monotone-devel] More descriptive help summary, Julio M. Merino Vidal, 2007/04/08
- [Monotone-devel] Re: More descriptive help summary, Julio M. Merino Vidal, 2007/04/11
- Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: More descriptive help summary,
Thomas Keller <=
- Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: More descriptive help summary, Julio M. Merino Vidal, 2007/04/12
- Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: More descriptive help summary, Thomas Keller, 2007/04/12
- Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: More descriptive help summary, Julio M. Merino Vidal, 2007/04/14
- Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: More descriptive help summary, Richard Levitte, 2007/04/14
- Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: More descriptive help summary, Thomas Keller, 2007/04/14
- Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: More descriptive help summary, Derek Scherger, 2007/04/14