John Darrington (2016-04-20 08:34 +0300) wrote: > On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 11:45:26PM -0400, myglc2 wrote: > > Table 2: Novice-friendly Commands > ================================= > | existing command | new command | > |----------------------------------------+-----------------------| > | guix package --list-available[=REGEXP] | guix available REGEXP | > | guix package --search=REGEXP | guix find REGEXP | > | guix package --show=PACKAGE | guix show PACKAGE | > | guix package --install PACKAGE | guix install PACKAGE | > | guix package --remove PACKAGE | guix remove PACKAGE | > | guix package --list-installed[=REGEXP] | guix list | > | guix package --roll-back | guix roll-back | > > This makes the most important new user commands simpler and it makes > them appear in "guix help". IMO, this will go a long way to improving > the novice user's experience. > > I agree this would make more sense.
Oh, no! I had an opposite idea: I think there should be only unambiguous subcommands! > 1. I never did understand why we use so many -- flags. Options are supposed > to be just that: Options to affect nuances about how the command should be > executed. Eg "ls --color" (We don't type "file --list") Options should not > normally be used for selecting a command to run. I agree, I would prefer more actions/subcommands and less options/flags. > 2. However, I wonder if such an arrangement could come back and bite us? For > example there are a number of other things that one might want to remove, > list, show or find - > not just packages; Profiles, services for example. How would doing that > fit > into the above scheme? This is exactly why I think these commands (show, install, list, etc.) shouldn't be top-level. IMO some of them should be inside "guix package" and some inside "guix profile". -- Alex
