Re: [BuildStream] Proposal: Workspace related DX features & design

[Tristan Van Berkom <tristan vanberkom codethink co uk>]

On Thu, 2018-09-06 at 12:40 +0200, Sander Striker wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Thu, Sep 6, 2018 at 12:27 PM Tristan Van Berkom <tristan vanberkom codethink co uk> wrote:
> > On Thu, 2018-09-06 at 11:03 +0200, Sander Striker wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >  
> > > On Thu, Sep 6, 2018 at 10:10 AM Tristan Van Berkom <tristan vanberkom codethink co uk> wrote:
> > > > Actually quick follow up here...
> > > >  
> > > > On Thu, 2018-09-06 at 16:48 +0900, Tristan Van Berkom via BuildStream-list wrote:
> > > > > Hi Sander,
> > > > [...]
> > > > > > > We have a much more intuitive experience when the optional directory
> > > > > > > argument is a path and not a "workspacename", which can be absolute or
> > > > > > > relative, and when relative is appended to the default location.
> > > > > >  
> > > > > > Being pedantic, where relative is appended to the default location if
> > > > > > it doesn't start with ./ or ../.
> > > > >  
> > > > > I like this yes, might still be relevant with your `--path` proposal ?
> > > >  
> > > > Let's not leave any room for ambiguity in implementation here.
> > > >  
> > > > I think that with this `--path` approach, the default location for
> > > > workspaces, configured or not, should be ignored completely.
> > > >  
> > > > Thoughts ?
> > >  
> > > +1.  I think that this will be least confusing.
> > >  
> > > So an absolute path starts with /.  A relative path will be relative
> > > to the current directory, regardless of whether it starts with ./ or
> > > not.
> > >  
> > > Agreed?
> >
> > Yes, basically the `--path` is interpreted as provided, relative paths
> > assumed to be relative to the CWD.
> >
> > I would further say that I expect it to be provided pretty often with a
> > leading `~/`, but I believe that is normally expanded by the shell and
> > we only see it as an absolute path.
>
> Great, looks like we're coming to a conclusion, and agree on semantics.
>
> Syntax wise we could use '--directory' instead of '--path' since we
> already have one location where we are using it, which is bst source-
> bundle.  However..., it looks like we have --directory as a global
> option as well to specify the project directory, which is unfortunate
> duplication.
>
> Thoughts?

I am rather ambivalent on this point, `--directory` in this case is
fine by me, I think we we're mostly using `--path` in our conversation
to help disambiguate with the former proposal.

Specifying:

  bst --directory /path/to/project workspace open --directory ~/my_workspace

Does not look wrong to me, could be confusing to new users but, the
sooner they learn that placements of options after command names is
extremely significant, the better.

With our CLI semantics, the placement of options are entirely
significant, both `--directory` statements in the above are clearly
different enough in my opinion.

Alternatively, it could equally be `--location` or `--workdir`, if
people really want a different word.

Cheers,
    -Tristan