[Xorp-hackers] BG 172

Mike Horn mhorn@vyatta.com
Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:38:24 -0800 (PST)


Another vote for removing "create" and having "set" and "edit" create the intermediary nodes.  I can understand the initial logic in having the set vs. create, but I think it causes more confusion than it eliminates.

-mike


----- Original Message -----
From: Hasso Tepper <hasso@linux.ee>
To: xorp-hackers@icir.org
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 2:48:36 AM GMT-0700
Subject: Re: [Xorp-hackers] BG 172

Mark Handley wrote:
> 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).

You are assuming here that user should know exact structure of all 
configuration statements which is insane.

> 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.

While entering new statements into configuration users don't care how the 
result will appear in configuration - whether command ends with 
intermediate or leaf node. They don't need that knowledge. They need this 
knowledge while working with existing configuration and then they already 
see how configuration structure with "show" command. 

> 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.

It's Junos vs. Xorp topic, it's general usability issue. There are two 
ways to start entering configuration command in Xorp - create vs. set. I 
don't know any other CLI behaving this way. User don't know exactly how 
configuration is built up. He presses tab and discovers logical path to 
configuration he/she wants. And using both create and set means a lot of 
more typing for user.

"I want to default LSA into ospf area with metric 10 , lets find out ... 
"set ?" ... "protocols " ... "ospf " ... "area 0.0.0.10 " ... hmmm, no 
any word about default ... argh, I have to create it before. "create 
protocols ospf area 0.0.0.10 default-lsa", "set protocols ospf area 
0.0.0.10 default-lsa metric 10" etc."

In all other CLI's there is only one path - to enter one configuration 
statement you don't have to go back to the beginning of the entering 
statement.

All Xorp users (testers actually) I know at the moment (including me) just 
use create command and take two issues as annoying bugs - difference from 
Junos cli and that create doesn't complete existing intermediate node 
names.


-- 
Hasso Tepper
_______________________________________________
Xorp-hackers mailing list
Xorp-hackers@icir.org
http://mailman.ICSI.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/xorp-hackers