Cli on Nicola Iarocci https://nicolaiarocci.com/tags/cli/ Recent content in Cli on Nicola Iarocci Hugo -- 0.143.1 en Produced / Written / Maintained by Nicola Iarocci since 2010 Wed, 13 Apr 2022 07:05:25 +0100 If you know your user is asking for help show them the damn help https://nicolaiarocci.com/if-you-know-your-user-is-asking-for-help-show-them-the-damn-help/ Wed, 13 Apr 2022 07:05:25 +0100 https://nicolaiarocci.com/if-you-know-your-user-is-asking-for-help-show-them-the-damn-help/ <p>One of my pet peeves has always been the many different, sometimes very original ways in which CLI tools handle help requests. POSIX sets the canon: <code>-h</code> or <code>--help</code> is how we ask for help. But no, some tools<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup> want to be original at the worst moment: when their users are struggling, looking for guidance.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s somewhat consolatory to learn that I&rsquo;m not alone in this fight. The other day I landed on Clayton Craft&rsquo;s blog. His [rant on the topic][2] splendidly concludes with the following assessment:</p> One of my pet peeves has always been the many different, sometimes very original ways in which CLI tools handle help requests. POSIX sets the canon: -h or --help is how we ask for help. But no, some tools1 want to be original at the worst moment: when their users are struggling, looking for guidance.

It’s somewhat consolatory to learn that I’m not alone in this fight. The other day I landed on Clayton Craft’s blog. His [rant on the topic][2] splendidly concludes with the following assessment:

If you know your user is asking for help, show them the damn help. It serves no one to chide them for not guessing the specific way your app wants them to ask for help. Better yet, support a more “common” way to allow users to ask for help if your app doesn’t already.

I agree wholeheartedly.

  1. I’m looking at you, NuGet. [2]: https://blog.craftyguy.net/cmdline-help/ [rss]: https://nicolaiarocci.com/index.xml [tw]: http://twitter.com/nicolaiarocci [nl]: https://buttondown.email/nicolaiarocci ↩︎

]]> Conquering the Command Line https://nicolaiarocci.com/conquering-the-command-line/ Sun, 12 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000 https://nicolaiarocci.com/conquering-the-command-line/ <p>This is a very good ebook, and is free for reading online.</p> <blockquote> <p>This book is for new developers, experienced developers, and everyone in between who wants to master Unix and Linux commands. This book was designed to showcase some of the most useful commands that a developer can know to help them in their daily tasks.</p></blockquote> <p>via <a href="http://conqueringthecommandline.com/book/frontmatter#preface">Softcover | Conquering the Command Line</a>.</p> This is a very good ebook, and is free for reading online.

This book is for new developers, experienced developers, and everyone in between who wants to master Unix and Linux commands. This book was designed to showcase some of the most useful commands that a developer can know to help them in their daily tasks.

via Softcover | Conquering the Command Line.

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