Phx - Phoenix Framework friendly CLI (Mix phx.* wrapper)

csokun · December 13, 2022, 6:31am

I love mix phx.* they are fantastic. However, I keep forgetting what argument comes first. So, I decided to write a small app that wraps mix phx.* with relevant prompt messages & hints. It works for me hope it helps others. I call it phx GitHub - csokun/phx: Phoenix Framework friendly CLI

Eiji · December 13, 2022, 7:00am

Subjectively I don’t see custom wrappers have any use for me, because:

We already have mix help … command if something is not clear.
It’s not good way for copy-paste examples (learning resources, creating similar project etc.)
They are harder to enhance comparing to simple bash autocompletion scripts

If I really would need to add something then it would be a simple bash script for autocompletion.

Also since lots of Unix commands supports passing arguments like you do, I would rather ask a phoenix core team if such idea could be merged to phoenix project instead of creating a wrapper.

If we would take a look at phx.new task code then we would see how simple would be a way to add prompts:

github.com

phoenixframework/phoenix/blob/4c9737cd1020ddb21cf1a8a714e6dc88317fd843/installer/lib/mix/tasks/phx.new.ex#L120-L130


      
          def run(argv) do
            elixir_version_check!()
            case parse_opts(argv) do
              {_opts, []} ->
                Mix.Tasks.Help.run(["phx.new"])
          
          
    {opts, [base_path | _]} ->
                generator = if opts[:umbrella], do: Umbrella, else: Single
                generate(base_path, generator, :project_path, opts)
            end
          end

In this case simple defp parse_opts([]) do … end function clause would do the work.

dogweather · December 13, 2022, 8:31am

This is cool, thank you. I’m the kind of developer who runs ssh-keygen to follow the interactive dialog. It’s annoying to need to learn a special, unrelated DSL (how to use a CLI app) just to get some other task done. I think it’s a legacy anti-pattern, TBH. I already need to truly know 10–20 languages that actually produce value. I’ll avoid spending time learning yet another that doesn’t actually generate business value.

That being said, Golang blows every chimp in the zoo, IMO. I’m not going to be contributing any time soon. In some perfect world, your code would work in Elixir and be DRY vis a vis the existing argument parser.