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# Bonzai, Well-Tended CLI Command Trees for Gophers
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Bonzai commands are unlike anything you've probably encountered so far,
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no getopt dashes, no ugly commander interface to learn, no 12637 lines
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of shell tab completion bloat to source before it will work, just well
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manicured commands organized into rooted node trees for your
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command-line, nested-tab-completing enjoyment with built-in (optional)
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help documentation that can easily be marshalled into JSON and presented
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either as text or well-styled HTML. Think "readthedocs" but served
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locally from your Bonzai command-line apps themselves.
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## "It's spelled bonsai/banzai."
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We know. The domains were taken. Plus, this makes it more unique and
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easier to find once you know the strange spelling we chose to use. Sorry
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if that triggers your OCD.
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On a lighter note, it just so happens that "banzai" means 'a traditional
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Japanese idiom meaning "ten thousand years" of long life,' a cheer used
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in celebrations. So combining the notion of a happy, little,
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well-manicured, beautiful tree and "ten thousand years of long life"
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works out just fine for us.
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Then, of course, there's the image of Buckaroo invoked every time we say
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the name. In fact, I think we have our new theme song.
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## Example GitHub Template
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<https://github.com/rwxrob/template-bonzai>
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## Design Considerations
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* **Promote high-level package library API calls over Cmd bloat.** Code
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belongs in package libraries, not Cmds. While Bonzai allows for rapid
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applications development by putting everything initially in Cmd
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Methods, Cmds are most designed for documentation and completion, not
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heavy Method implementations. Eventually, most Method implementations
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should be moved into their own package libraries, perhaps even in the
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same Go module. Cmds should *never* be communicating with each other
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directly. While the idea of adding a Channel attribute was intriguing,
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it quickly became clear that doing so would promote too much code and
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tight coupling --- even with channels --- between specific commands.
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Cmds should be *very* light. In fact, most Cmds should assign their
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Method directly from one matching the Method function signature in a
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callable, high-level library.
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