[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Ethan Furman]

Change by Ethan Furman :


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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Matej Cepl]

Change by Matej Cepl :


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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Todd Leonhardt]

Todd Leonhardt  added the comment:

The cmd2 project is in the process of rapidly stabilizing, but it isn't quite 
there yet.

The other cmd2 core maintainers and I do have a bunch of refactoring planned 
over the next 6 to 8 months or so.  Right now @kotfu (Jared Crapo) is working 
on replacing pyparsing with shlex.  Since shlex is built into Python, that 
removes one 3rd party dependency.   In early September we plan on abandoning 
support for Python 2.7 for future releases which will enable us to remove 
dependencies on most of the other 3rd party libraries we currently depend upon 
and to dramatically clean the code up in numerous other ways.  The one third 
party dependency which will be left is pyperclip, but honestly that isn't very 
well maintained and I've been thinking about removing the functionality we use 
it for (clipboard copy/paste).

Another core cmd2 maintainer, @kmvanbrunt (Kevin Van Brunt) has been toying 
with the idea of forking it and creating a lighter and simpler version with a 
reduced feature set.  If it is something the core developers view as desirable, 
I think it would perhaps be a viable path forward to have the cmd2 maintainers 
take over maintenance of cmd and to move towards that becoming the lightweight 
reduced feature set version and cmd2 living on as the heavier weight more full 
featured extension of cmd (but many of the current features of cmd2 could be 
merged into cmd).

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Catherine Devlin]

Catherine Devlin  added the comment:

Hi, everybody!  I really appreciate the kind words about cmd2.

For several years now, Todd Leonhardt has been cmd2's primary maintainer, so I 
may be speaking out of turn.  But, before I wanted to let it get within 
screaming distance of the standard library, I would want to refactor it like 
mad; maybe even remove some features that were created more in a spirit of 
gee-whiz-I-can-do-this than real need.  Todd and I have worked a little on such 
a refactor, but even once we make time to actually complete it, that would make 
cmd2 by definition too unstable until the refactored version itself had earned 
some grey hair.

Also, cmd2 depends on pyparsing, which is itself unlikely to be in the standard 
library.

I think a "see also" list attached to standard library module docs would be 
great, and if this helps nucleate a decision about whether/how to do that for a 
bunch of modules, that would be great.

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Raymond Hettinger]

Raymond Hettinger  added the comment:

>  cmd seems to be largely abandoned in the std lib: 

I'm not sure why the absence of bugs indicates abandonment.  We almost never 
touch defaultdict, in part because the code is straight-forward, tested, and 
not buggy.  If a bug were reported for cmd, I would be happy to work on it.

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Ned Deily]

Ned Deily  added the comment:

> But I'm not ready to give up on the idea that Python comes with batteries 
> included. We should not let those batteries corrode and leak.

I totally agree with you.  And it would be great if cmd2 could be incorporated 
into the std lib as an updated cmd.  cmd seems to be largely abandoned in the 
std lib: looking at the commit history for it shows few changes in the past 
decade or so and I'm not aware that any current core developer feels ownership 
of it: I might be wrong.  But it certainly is true that cmd2 has seen much more 
activity recently than cmd has.  So I would think that the ideal solution would 
be for the cmd2 project to take ownership of cmd in the std library.  OTOH, it 
seems like we haven't always had good long-term results in the past when trying 
to bring existing third-party packages into the std lib.  But it could be worth 
trying again, if someone were willing to shepherd it.

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Guido van Rossum]

Guido van Rossum  added the comment:

Well, is cmd2 stabilizing, or is it still changing at a rate too fast for 
inclusion in the stdlib? Does it perhaps have a mix of desirable and wacky 
features? Or could we just copy much of it into the stdlib as 'cmd'?

I'm a bit concerned about the idea that we should not upgrade stdlib modules 
because a better 3rd party alternative exists -- and I'm kind of assuming that 
those 3rd party module authors are also somewhat disappointed that their 
modules are not used to improve the stdlib. (PyPI not withstanding.)

Often (like in this case) there's just no chance of getting rid of the stdlib 
module, so we're just stuck with a duplication of functionality.

Note that every case is a bit different. But I'm not ready to give up on the 
idea that Python comes with batteries included. We should not let those 
batteries corrode and leak.

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Ned Deily]

Ned Deily  added the comment:

> FWIW, I've been teaching cmd to my clients for years and it has worked fine 
> for them.

I'm not saying that cmd is bad; it's just that there have been suggested 
improvements over the years and many of those are already implemented in cmd2, 
which is supposed to be generally upward compatible from cmd.  (I don't know 
how accurate that is in practice.)  The main reason for bringing this up is 
that it seems to me that, rather than trying to duplicate effort by 
re-implementing new features for cmd that are already in cmd2, we should point 
at cmd2 for new users who want those features.  So, as Guido pointed out, with 
a customer of cmd in the std library (e.g. pdb), we shouldn't remove it.  But 
we can still set expectations that there aren't going to be new features in 
cmd.  Does that sound reasonable to everyone?

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Ned Deily]

Ned Deily  added the comment:

> (Though I think it's somewhat arbitrary.

Yes, it is.

> E.g. do we link to requests anywhere?

Yes:
https://docs.python.org/3/library/urllib.request.html

> Or to all the "better pdb" modules?)

Not that I'm aware of.

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Raymond Hettinger]

Raymond Hettinger  added the comment:

FWIW, I've been teaching cmd to my clients for years and it has worked fine for 
them.

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Guido van Rossum]

Guido van Rossum  added the comment:

I'm fine with linking to cmd2, we do that for some other modules too.
(Though I think it's somewhat arbitrary. E.g. do we link to requests
anywhere? Or to all the "better pdb" modules?)

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Ned Deily]

Ned Deily  added the comment:

> cmd is used by pdb

Well, that's a pretty good reason for not removing cmd!  I really wasn't 
advocating its removal, just gently pushing users to use cmd2.  So perhaps we 
should only add a "See Also" like we do for urllib.request and close any new 
feature request issues?

>  See also: The Requests package is recommended for a higher-level
>  HTTP client interface.

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Guido van Rossum]

Guido van Rossum  added the comment:

But cmd is used by pdb. Do you recommend we deprecate that too? (There are 
countless 3rd party alternatives, but I sure prefer to have it in the stdlib, 
so I can start debugging without first having to install a dependency.)

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Steven D'Aprano]

Steven D'Aprano  added the comment:

(Previously posted on Python-Dev.)

I think the documentation note is a good idea.

But I disagree with deprecating "cmd" unless it is actively falling
apart and no longer working, not just languishing with no feature
improvements. Just in the last week, I've been reminded twice that many
people using Python do so where they cannot just arbitrarily pip install
, and if a library isn't in the std lib, they can't use it
without a lot of pain:

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/tutor/2018-April/112817.html

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/tutor/2018-April/112818.html

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Ned Deily]

Ned Deily  added the comment:

@barry, I was thinking more of 3.8 but, sure, if there seems to be a consensus 
prior to 3.7.0b4 that deprecation is the right thing, we could do it in 3.7.

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Barry A. Warsaw]

Barry A. Warsaw  added the comment:

@ned.deily - are you proposing to officially deprecate it for 3.7?  If we're 
going to do it, let's do it now so we can remove it for 3.9.  It seems like a 
reasonable strategy to push folks toward cmd2 and clean up our stdlib.

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Ned Deily]

Ned Deily  added the comment:

I've asked on python-dev for comments:

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2018-April/152653.html

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[issue33233] Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd

[Ned Deily]

New submission from Ned Deily :

The cmd module in the standard library has languished for many years.  In the 
mean time, third-party replacements for it have arisen.  Perhaps the most 
popular is cmd2 which seems to be actively maintained, provides upward 
compatibility from cmd along with many desirable new features, and is 
permissively licensed.

I suggest we consider at a minimum adding a "See also:" note referencing cmd2 
to the cmd documentation in the Standard Library document, similar to what we 
do for the third-party "requests" module in the "urllib.request" documentation.

We could be even bolder and officially deprecate "cmd" and consider closing 
open enhancement issues for it on b.p.o.




https://pypi.org/project/cmd2/
https://cmd2.readthedocs.io/

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assignee: docs@python
components: Documentation
messages: 315002
nosy: Catherine.Devlin, docs@python, lukasz.langa, ned.deily
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Suggest third-party cmd2 module as alternative to cmd
versions: Python 3.8

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