Rewrite CLI using better options parser (possibly yargs)

[raphinesse]

Requirements

• sub-command support
• generate usage text from specification

AFAICT, nopt does not satisfy any of those, so let's look at some alternatives.

Disqualifications

• meow and optionator have no sub-command support: https://github.com/sindresorhus/meow/issues/69, https://github.com/gkz/optionator/issues/6
• optimist and minimist are not maintained anymore: https://github.com/substack/node-optimist/issues/132, https://github.com/substack/minimist/issues/115

That leaves us with yargs vs commander. Multiple reasons let me favor yargs:

• Seemingly better docs
• Faster growing download count (= popularity?)
• Younger project
• The pirate theme :wink:

Related: #309

[Menardi]

I'm not too familiar with the CLI args parsers, what does sub-command support mean in this context? I guess knowing that will probably explain the need to switch away from nopt :)

[raphinesse]

@Menardi I'm thinking of something like this: https://github.com/yargs/yargs/blob/master/docs/advanced.md#example-command-hierarchy-using-commanddir

I will try to provide a Motivation section to this issue when I find the time.

[shadowspawn]

If you wonder what Cordova might look like using Commander for the CLI, I tried emulating the Cordova CLI to try out some new features coming in Commander v5: https://github.com/shadowspawn/commander-does-cordova.git

(This isn't a recommendation to use Commander, just commenting for your possible interest.)

[carloscortonc]

Hi! Browsing through other cli-libraries I bumped into this issue. I have been building a cli-parser myself (for educational purposes) and reading this issue's descriptions, seems it might be a good fit: https://github.com/carloscortonc/cli-er#readme

Would love any feedback/suggestions! 👐