Amjith Ramanujam - Awesome Command Line Tools

Designing a good command line tool is challenging. Command line tools look archaic compared to modern graphical interfaces, discoverability is a big issue for command line tools, proactive help is hard to implement. This talk will cover a set of specific techniques to help alleviate those challenges.

How did [pgcli](http://pgcli.com) and [mycli](http://mycli.net) overcome these problems? We will cover specific examples where command line apps shine. The examples will be drawn from pgcli, mycli and [bpython](http://bpython-interpreter.org/). This talk will suggest libraries and show how they can help you implement a wonderful command line interface.

The libraries covered in this talk include [python-prompt-toolkit](https://github.com/jonathanslenders/python-prompt-toolkit), [pygments](http://pygments.org/), [click](http://click.pocoo.org/), [fuzzyfind](https://github.com/amjith/fuzzyfinder).

The goal of the talk is to distil the ideas that exist in successful command line applications as guidelines for building powerful command line applications.

https://us.pycon.org/2017/schedule/presentation/518/

Transcript

1. Awesome Command Line Tools Amjith Ramanujam
2. Amjith Ramanujam @amjithr
3. Netflix Traffic Engineering
4. PGCLI & MYCLI https://pgcli.com http://mycli.net
5. MS-DOS 6.22 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/MS-DOS_install_welcome.gif
6. Linux • Up/Down arrow • Tab-completion
7. DISCOVERABILITY
8. GUI • ICONS • MENUS
9. PGCLI https://www.pgcli.com
10. Fish Shell https://fishshell.com
11. DEMO
12. Discoverability • Be forthcoming • Eschew special keys
13. USER FOCUS
14. MyCLI http://mycli.net
15. DEMO
16. User Focus • Users come first • Implementation later
17. bpython https://bpython-interpreter.org
18. DEMO
19. CONFIGURABILITY
20. Configurability • Subjective options only
21. DISCOVERABILITY USER FOCUS CONFIGURABILITY
22. FISHSHELL BPYTHON PGCLI MYCLI
24. CHECKLIST ❏ Persistent History ❏ History search ❏ Emacs Keybindings ❏ Paged Output ❏ Auto-Completion ❏ Minimal Config ❏ Syntax Coloring
25. prompt-toolkit https://github.com/jonathanslenders/python-prompt-toolkit
26. REPL Read/Eval/Print/Loop
37. CHECKLIST ✓ Persistent History ✓ History search ✓ Emacs Keybindings ❏ Paged Output ✓ Auto-Completion ✓ Minimal Config ✓ Syntax Coloring
38. Resources • pgcli.com • mycli.net • fishshell.com (design) • bpython-interpreter.org • prompt-toolkit
39. Contact @amjithr • @jonathan_s - Jonathan • @ballingt - Thomas • @icherniavska - Irina
40. Thank you! @amjithr