Anis: Totally agrees, but its important to highlight that both directions for that arguments hold. We've done our best to support bin/ scripts post 3.0, yet blanket statements like "CLI should not be used with IDE", or "CLI sucks unless you just doing something trivial" are being thrown around, which are harmful in my opinion, and I don't think its fair that some of us are promoting that message to users.
CLI works well for me, and while its not perfect, I strive to learn its limitations and make it better, not condemn it. As far as the CordovaWebView use case, I actually have never tried that. Has anyone bothered to make sure it works well post-3.0, or does Joe have a point that we missed addressing this? -Michal On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 3:07 PM, Anis KADRI <anis.ka...@gmail.com> wrote: > This confirms the point that I've made numerous times. Different > people have different needs and expectations. There is no right or > wrong way. It all depends on what you want to achieve. It sounds like > we will be promoting bin/ and cordova/ scripts + plugman for a while. > CLI is not (and should not be) the only way to build cordova apps. > > On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 11:35 AM, Tyler Wilson <twil...@symbeeco.com> > wrote: > > > > On Oct 16, 2013, at 1:47 PM, Joe Bowser <bows...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 10:13 AM, Wargo, John <john.wa...@sap.com> > wrote: > >>> Joe, > >>> > >>> What is your issue with the CLI? Isn't not using it making your life > more difficult if you're doing cordova development (An app which includes > one or more plugins). I assumed that with 3.0 everyone would use the Cli > for their cordova (not cordova plugin) development. What am I missing? > >>> > >> > >> I was going to keep quiet, because this is going to make me extremely > >> unpopular with the people who worked and promoted the CLI, since I've > >> mostly left them alone until now. The CLI actually makes your life > >> more difficult if you're making anything more complex than hello > >> world. If you care about details, you'll want the source code for > >> Android and iOS at the very least. > >> > >> The biggest problem with the CLI is the fact that it hides the > >> platforms in the .cordova directory and that if you're an advanced > >> user of Cordova you have no way to make custom modifications to the > >> source code on a per-project basis. We've run into this numerous > >> times where certain things need to be modified on a webview on 3.0 > >> that you can't easily do anymore. Now, these changes by themselves > >> are individual edge cases, which I don't want to see put in the XML of > >> the project, but if you hide the source, you end up having to do crazy > >> things like declare Java code in XML to override these cases. I think > >> that people should be able to modify the code and use it whichever way > >> they want and that they should be able to do this on a per-project > >> basis if they want, and I view the CLI as something that gets in the > >> way of that, which is why I have such a low opinion of it. > >> > >> The CLI also makes it much harder for the CordovaWebView use case > >> where you use Cordova as a small part of a larger native application. > >> Given that this was one of the big features of PhoneGap 2.0, it makes > >> no sense for us to make it harder to use that feature. > >> > >> Finally, I have yet to see anyone actually release a real application > >> to the App Store or the Play Store with it. Developing an application > >> is great, but if I can't release it, then the tool is absolutely > >> worthless. While the CLI may look impressive in demos in front of an > >> audience, it's not helpful in reality. > >> > >> Joe > > > > While we are piling on: I have mentioned issues I have had with iOS > builds using the CLI. The worst is having to edit code somewhere outside > the IDE, do a cordova prepare, then go back to Xcode. If I am using an IDE, > I expect to be able to use it to edit code. If the CLI is not designed to > be used with an IDE, perhaps it should just create Makefiles, ant scripts, > etc. and not make us think we can use an IDE by generated Xcode project > files (maybe this is the only way to build apps on OSX/iOS now - I am not > that knowledgeable in that area). > > > > I have moved all my projects back to using the bin/create method and > using plugman to install all the plugins I need. I use the --shared option > as well to a local git clone of the iOS Cordova so that all my projects > get updates at the same time. Much easier to develop this way for me. > > > > Thanks, > > Tyler > > >
