CLI support in lp:charm-helpers and the road to 1.0

[Matthew Wedgwood]

I'm happy to announce that lp:charm-helpers now includes support for command-line invocation of helpers using the "chlp" command. This release implements only two simple subcommands intended as examples. Nevertheless, this is a major milestone, as it paves the way for  charm authors to access charm-helpers functionality from any language capable of making shell calls.

With all the work we've put into the project, I think we're ready to push forward to a 1.0 release. The goals I have in mind for 1.0 are:

* Implement any remaining most-frequently-used functionality for charms
* Expose generally-useful helpers a chlp subcommands
* Provide basic documentation for python and command-line users
* Settle on a stable API by ensuring that helpers outside of contrib are well-organized
* Set up automated unit tests whose success will gate merges to the stable tree
* Set up a stable PPA that can be used with confidence by charm authors and deployers

The top thing you can do to help is to file bugs reports. In addition to problem reports, feature requests are most welcome.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/charm-helpers/+bugs

If you'd be so generous to contribute development effort, please consider the 1.0-milestone bugs top priority.
https://launchpad.net/charm-helpers/+milestone/1.0

Finally, I'd like to extend my thanks to all the contributors and users so far.

-Matthew