Complaining that all existing tools are old, but I'm looking at the documentation and the what immediately catches my eye is that it doesn't use any modern convention I've gotten used to?
Overwrite with "-w". I've never seen a tool not use "-f"
Not reserving "-h" for help text is also an interesting choice. Makes me think of the mantra "be conservative in what you send out but liberal in what you accept". Per that philosophy, both "--help" and "-h" should be accepted because neither gained a decisive majority in usage and so people might try either. It's not like you'd know what to use because it hasn't told you yet
Forcing use of a long option "--press=N" (for the zstd level setting) is also new/unique terminology for what is usually "-N" (like "-1" to "-9")
(Basic) drop-in compatibility with every other tool from gzip to zstd would also have been nice, but archiving and compression are different things and everything from zip to 7z to tar works in unique ways so this makes enough sense I guess. Still, could have been useful
It's still better than tar or ps, so if it catches on that's still a step forwards in terms of command line standards
Hmmm. I went to the doco hoping for something about the file format :( No doco for me. I guess that would be too old fashioned.
It seems to be "read the code" or nothing - which is fine until they update the code... It's great (probably should be mandatory) to have a reference program, but if they're promoting it as a container format, something along the lines of an RFC would be helpful.
The choice of parameters was solely done to be clear, and not what people used to. -f meaning force is not clear; -w meaning overwrite, seemed like a better logical choice, to me.
Nice point on -h. Yes, I did not want to go crazy. After all, almost all (CLI) people use pack as `pack ./test/`. Options are for advanced people like you. Most people will use the OS integration that will be published later on.
--press=hard is the only option there is. There may be more, but with Pack you do not need to choose a level (like 1..9 with ZIP). Just let Pack do its thing, and you will be happy. Hard Press is there for people who want to pack once and unpack many times (like publishing), and it is worth spending extra time on it. Even then, Pack goes the sane way and does not eat your computer just for a kilobyte or two.
> Just let Pack do its thing, and you will be happy
Well, no. Sometimes i want maximum compression while having a lot of CPU and wall clock time. And sometimes being fast is more important than compression level. Also managing server utilization is needed. Level thing is there for a reason
This is not a binary choice, actual level of effort is required. I've seen many times people fine tuning compression levels in all kinds of automation scenarios
Thank you for the notes. I am well aware of the levels and Pack uses custom configuration to match its inner design.
Maybe more level come, or maybe not. But to be clear, Pack supports any valid Zstandard content, and this levels we are discussing are about Pack CLI chosen for better user experience. Any other client can produce and store any valid content for chose level or configuration, and other clients can read it.
There are many different usecases, and each one have different set of requirements. E.g.
- for end-user facing cli: support as much conventions as possible (-v --version, -h --help, other options similar to other compressors), sane defaults
- for automatic tasks like making backups via cron: piping, correct exit codes, level of effort configuration, silent modes for reduced logging.
Second one is likely to fly first, can be used isolated on company level if file format is stable
Overwrite with "-w". I've never seen a tool not use "-f"
Not reserving "-h" for help text is also an interesting choice. Makes me think of the mantra "be conservative in what you send out but liberal in what you accept". Per that philosophy, both "--help" and "-h" should be accepted because neither gained a decisive majority in usage and so people might try either. It's not like you'd know what to use because it hasn't told you yet
Forcing use of a long option "--press=N" (for the zstd level setting) is also new/unique terminology for what is usually "-N" (like "-1" to "-9")
(Basic) drop-in compatibility with every other tool from gzip to zstd would also have been nice, but archiving and compression are different things and everything from zip to 7z to tar works in unique ways so this makes enough sense I guess. Still, could have been useful
It's still better than tar or ps, so if it catches on that's still a step forwards in terms of command line standards