juju command progress ui

[Ian Booth]

On 01/03/13 08:05, Gustavo Niemeyer wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 6:50 PM, Ian Booth <ian.booth at canonical.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> We have feedback problems in some of our logic, and that can be fixed.
>>> If we made asynchronous commands block for no reason, when they're in
>>> fact done, we'd be going to a lesser model.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Mark, Julian and John have summarised the issue well, especially the part about
>> making the UI fit the user's model, so I won't repeat their points here. While I
>> agree the async commands should not block (although status and deploy do
>> currently block for minutes or more if bootstrap is not finished yet), the
>> current situation is clearly sub optimal from a usability perspective. My vote
>> would be for the commands (eg bootstrap) to automatically go into observe mode
>> once the request has been actioned and the user can ^C any time after that if
>> they want. My view is that that model captures the best of both worlds, and as a
>> juju user is what I'd prefer to see happen.
> 
> I hear it, but I respectfully disagree, and I have backed that with
> explanations of why I see the suggested change as a very poor
> experience, why the way it works today is both desirable and typical
> of such applications, and multiple people provided alternatives to
> how we can fix the issues brought up without changing significantly
> the existing mechanism (which is a win on itself).
> 
> I hope you understand my perspective too, even if you don't fully
> agree with it. It's time for us to turn this thread into positive
> changes.
> 
>

This thread has never been about anything other than positive changes. Several
contributors besides myself have highlighted a usability problem with the
current UI, and we have been discussing openly possible solutions, exploring
ways to match the UI with most/many users' expectations. My preference expressed
above was a +1 for one of John's suggestions which was also restated by Mark I
think. I do fear it is hard sometimes for developers to fully appreciate an end
user's perspective, especially those who know so well the juju internals. From
that basis, it is easy to feel that the way it works today is desirable, but
from a typical end user's perspective (developers/designers of juju are not the
customers here), it is confusing. So we need to do something, which is what this
thread is about.