Design and implementation of CLI?

Question

I am developing a time management tool for personal use. I prefer to use the keyboard above the mouse, and the interface has a general-purpose text field that will act as a command line. I was just starting to think about what commands I needed, what to use for command names, how to pass keys and parameters, etc.

I wonder if some of you have come across a good reading of these lines; what describes the choices you have for designing cli, and how they affect interpreter complexity and command extensibility. It does not matter if the descriptions are linguistic or in general terms. However, my implementation will be with javascript.

Thank.

Answer 1

Read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Software-Tools-Brian-W-Kernighan/dp/020103669X

This explains some of the “philosophy” behind the Unix CLI.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-clutil/

http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/xbd_chap12.html#tag_12_01c