npm "isntall"

[kumarharsh]

What is the significance of "isntall" command in npm?
Looking into the code, in the file lib/npm.js, aliases{ } has isntall mapped to install

I fathom this is done to go round the common typo users do while typing install.
But, why are we even offering programmers an opportunity to be sloppy and MAKE that mistake? This is counter-intutive IMO

[lacivert]

I agree. And just like now I did, it become like a question for many people: 'what is isntall?' and they will waste their time to understand this.

[isaacs]

Working as designed.

The only way to stumble across this is to be reading the code, and if yo'ure reading the code, then you can see what it is.

npm is designed to do the right thing, even if you sometimes don't.

[kumarharsh]

actually, i was not reading the code initially.

I stumbled across this when node listed all the available commands. and there it was, isntall. I thought maybe it was somehow (in a weird way) different than install, but no... its an alias.

[muloka]

If this is a valid alias then doing

npm help isntall

should bring up the help section for install? and/or be listed as an alias on the help page?

[edef1c]

It's a useful typo correction. a non-issue.

[kumarharsh]

ok. I get the point of using isntall, although I still feel it makes the programmers more sloppy :)

[scottcc]

+1 muloka, at least to take advantage of the opportunity to opine on whether something isn't as tall as was thought.

[sam-github]

@issacs, not just visible in source, shows up in the usage message, where it looks like a bug:
% npm help | grep isntall
home, i, info, init, install, isntall, issues, la, link,
Of course, google finds this issue, where its explained as a feature.

[yetzt]

<3 for this feautre.

[kumarharsh]

after actually using npm for quite a long time now, I've noticed that i've rarely mistyped the 'install' command...

but of course, there are much larger things to discuss and do in this world than nitpicking on this typo. If @isaacs wants to keep this "feature", its cool. There is no harm in it except some bytes of extra code :P

Double Closing this issue.

[luk-]

isntall is definitely not coming out ever.

On Saturday, July 20, 2013, Kumar Harsh wrote:

after actually using npm for quite a long time now, I've noticed that i've
rarely mistyped the 'install' command...

but of course, there are much larger things to discuss and do in this
world than nitpicking on this typo. If @isaacs https://github.com/isaacswants to keep this "feature", its cool. There is no harm in it except some
bytes of extra code :P

Double Closing this issue.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/isaacs/npm/issues/2933#issuecomment-21295428
.

[sferik]

We should be solving the general problem: people sometimes make typos, instead of the specific problem: people sometimes type “isntall” when they mean “install”. I’m sure there are other npm commands that are frequently mistyped. We ought to calculate the Levenshtein distance between unrecognized commands and known commands and select the best match, within some reasonable threshold. Modern versions of git do precisely this.

> git lgo
WARNING: You called a Git command named 'lgo', which does not exist.
Continuing under the assumption that you meant 'log'
in 0.1 seconds automatically...

PS: There is a nice package for calculating Levenshtein distance.

PPS: Can you pass the salt?

[kumarharsh]

@sferik : A very good idea

[bobthecow]

@sferik Oh, they do it automatically now? That's about a jillion times awesomer than what my version of git does:

$ git lgo
git: 'lgo' is not a git command. See 'git --help'.

Did you mean this?
    log

Yes. For the love. What kind of a pedantic jerk knows what I meant but points it out to me instead of just doing it?

[sferik]

Actually, it’s not automatic…but you can enable it by adding the following to your global .gitconfig:

[help]
    autocorrect = 1

The value appears to be tenths-of-a-second to wait before continuing with the best guess (e.g. autocorrect = 10 waits 1 second). Setting it to 0 disables autocorrect.

[bobthecow]

Awesome. Thanks Erik!

[rjmunro]

@bobthecow:

What kind of a pedantic jerk knows what I meant but points it out to me instead of just doing it?

It's always possible that it wasn't what you meant and it guessed wrong. The result of it doing the wrong thing automatically might be very bad.

[bobthecow]

@rjmunro In git, not very often. The reflog's got your back :)

[stefanbeller]

This issue was linked here
https://plus.google.com/+TimothyGu/posts/bsfvRkERPcq

[memeyou]

scared the crud out of me when it didn't give an error and started installing stuff.

[rkulla]

I never seem to typo that word, but thought you guys did. Confused me. Seems better to just let the user do their own auto-correction for words they tend to type wrong, because it will show up in pastes in tutorials and debugging output, not help the person learn to correct their bad habits, could potentially mess with future auto-completion, etc.

Not a huge deal, just my two sense.

[adrianheine]

I don't care very much about whether npm recognizes that typo or not. However, I find it very confusing that it is listed in the npm command list but has no documentation. I actually read it as »isn’t all« and had no clue what it did until I read this issue.

[cesarvarela]

+1 to sferik suggestion.

I don't get why someone could be against this, I think this practice should be implemented everywhere. And it's not sloppy, it's helpful. The smarter the software the less I work.

[neimad-zz]

"isntall" should be removed because it wastes developer time - when a dev sees "isntall" for the first time it seems odd, so they have to do a google search and eventually end up on this page, which is ridiculous, and wastes 5 minutes of my time.

Just remove it. No sane code/scripts should be using "isntall" anywhere and if they do, shame on everyone involved in that decision. If it's saving you time you're doing it wrong in the first place.

[erg]

+1 on isntall wasting my time. wtf people.

[othiym23]

You people have no poetry in your souls.

[ktalik]

You people have no correctness in your minds. J/K (also surprised with isntall)

[zeke]

I've been delighted by isntall more than a few times.

[michaelnisi]

but isn't all what you install
winter or fall, spring and summer too
just bar foo

[ktalik]

Please provide --poetic option for npm.

[Jon889]

Typing isntall in a script and not bothering to change it is lazy and bad, but accidentally typing it in the prompt isn't bad because typing is speed is much more of an issue. But documenting it in the list of nom commands probably isn't too good of an idea. Also it could be made better by printing "Assuming you meant install not isntall".

[annejhetson]

10/10 good waste of time would do again

[isaacs]

To reiterate the official position on this: working as designed. npm is not here to punish people for spelling mistakes. npm is here to install your packages, even if you type "isntall".

Reduction-to-absurdity insults and complaints on this or any other npm issue will not be tolerated, and any further behavior of that nature will be regarded as trolling and reported to GitHub administration.