[Xorp-hackers] BG 172

Kristian Larsson kristian@juniks.net
Mon, 20 Mar 2006 00:24:18 +0100


On Sun, Mar 19, 2006 at 08:42:12PM +0000, Mark Handley wrote:
> On 3/19/06, Kristian Larsson <kristian@juniks.net> wrote:
> > It's been awhile since Hassos entry on this bug
> > so I assume noone is actively working on this.
> > As the XORP developers so far have not recognized
> > this as a bug I wonder how we should proceed?
> 
> There are a lot of different issues in that thread.  The first message
> may be indicating a bug (I'm not sure - it's hard to tell), but the
> others are all discussing a change of UI, which isn't a bug but rather
> it's a feature request :-)
Score! ;)

> From a coding point of view, it isn't terribly hard to remove the
> create command and perform the same functionality with the set
> command.  But I'm not sure we every reached a conclusion on the
> desired UI, so I'd like to re-open the discussion.
> 
> The reason for the create command was to make it obvious to the user
> the difference between creating a node where there can be many (such
> as creating peers in BGP, or adding addresses to an interface), and
> setting a parameter (when it's only possible to have one value, such
> as the holdtime on a particular peering).  This was supposed to be
> less confusing to the user - the two behaviours are fundamentally
> different, and using a single command means the user can't tell from
> the command which behaviour will occur.
I agree that this is a 'beautiful' solution from a
design perspective but we should prioritize
usability and not design aestethics.

> 
> With hindsight though, it's not clear to me if it is in fact less
> confusing.  But it's hard to tell, because my worldview is distorted
> by using XORP, and other's worldviews are clearly distorted by using
> Juniper boxes.
True although I'd say my mind is mostly distorted
by Ciscos IOS with all it's irradical design
decisions (peer-groups comes to mind). 

> So, what do you think is easiest for the user?  That's what matters
> most.  If we can agree what the simplest and least confusing UI is, we
> will code it.
I'm all for the "JunOS way". Ie, no create
command, but you probably already know my opinion
by now :)

Regards,
  Kristian.